Champions of the Universe Original Draft
by Joshua The Evil Guy
Summary: AUOne particular Buffy has a destiny very different from the others. Crossover with the entire Dragonball universe, and several other thrown in too. This is the original draft of Champions.
1. Introduction

Champions Of The Universe: 

**Dragon Ball C(haracter) x-over******

**_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_**

_Disclaimer:_In no way do I own any of these characters, or their histories, except ofcourse for the Powers, the Compound, and the character of Goku, though not his history or name.All characters and other links to the television show _"Buffy the Vampire Slayer"_ belong to Joss Whedon, and the respective production companies.Anything related to Dragon Ball Z belong to their respective creators.This is entirely a work of fiction, and in no way do I promote or believe any of the things within here written, nor do I stand to make any sort of profit.

**The Beginning:**

It had been a busy night so far for the "Slayerettes" as they called themselves.It was the middle of October, about three or so weeks since Spike showed up on the night of St. Vigeous.And it seemed, to Buffy anyway, the vampires were becoming more and more aggressive since the Master vampire had strolled into town with his insane sweetheart, Drusilla.

The night had started relatively normal enough, if you call reading 700-year-old books, practicing throwing bottles of holy water, swinging wood stakes, and walking through graveyards normal.Buffy, Xander, and Willow had already taken care of the "morning risers" or the vampires that had just been put in the ground, and were due to rise in the early evening, just after the sun had set.That much was fairly routine, with Xander and Willow off to the side as Buffy beat the un-living crap out of the stupid fang-face.

After the first five or so, Xander began to comment on the very thing Buffy was thinking.

"You know, it just occurred to me, this is like the fifth or so vampire we've dusted tonight." Xander commented offhandedly as they strolled through the third graveyard that night.

"Yeah, so?" Buffy asked, keeping her senses on high, looking for any other vamps in the area.

"Well, don't we usually give up around midnight because we can barely find one?So that way we can have some Bronze time?"When no response came, "Well, don't we?"

"What's your point Xander?" Willow asked, also keeping her eyes out and ears peeled.

"I just find it kinda funny that we've already dusted five vamps tonight, and oh look, here come some more." Xander said, pointing to the three or so vampires heading directly towards them.Willow and Buffy also saw them, as well as the other two sets of three coming on either side of them.

"What's your point Xander?" Buffy repeated, getting out "Mr. Pointy" before rushing the three vamps coming from the right.

"My point is," Xander paused to shove a cross in the face of the vampire on the left, kicking the other in the gut, and staking the last one."Maybe something is going on.I've never seen…" pause again so that he could stake the one behind the cross and knock the gutted out with the butt of the cross."…fang faces work together like this before.Not to mention that they seem to be getting closer to the _point_…" he emphasizes as he stakes the last vampire."…of outnumbering us.I just find that kinda funny."

Xander then looked around at his comrades in arms.Buffy was taking on four vampires at once, with two piles of dust already at her feet.She didn't need any help.Willow, on the other hand was dealing with two.She seemed to be attempting a spell of some kind, but it was also clear that the vampires weren't about to let her finish.

"Need any help Will?" Xander asked good-naturedly.Suddenly there were four unearthly screams of pain, one right after the other.Buffy walked up next to Xander and watched Willow, still trying to mumble her way through a certain spell, and hide behind a tombstone.

Finally, Willow seemed to get it right, came out of hiding, and pointed a finger at each vampire on either side of her.Two fireballs, both roughly the size of softballs, flew from Willow's fingertips to connect solidly with each vampire.The two screamed and tried to stop the flames, but that only seemed to increase the amount of fire they were on.After several moments struggles, the two finally were engulfed in the flames and burned away to ash.

"Nice going Willow." Buffy exclaimed as the exhausted witch-in-training came up to the two friends.To which the pale redhead responded with a muttered thanks, before collapsing to her knees in exhaustion.

Fortunately, Buffy caught her before she hit the ground."Will!Willow!Are you all right?Speak to me Will!" Buffy started shouting at her best friend.She began to panic, afraid that another of her friends had gotten hurt because she was the Slayer.

"Buffy…" Willow muttered, her eyes closed.

"Will!Thank God!Are you all right?Will, speak to me!" Buffy shouted again.

"You said that already." Willow responded opening her eyes some.

"Will, are you OK?" Buffy was on the verge of tears as she held Willow close, with Xander on the other side of their friend.

"Yeah, I'm OK.Its just exhausting using magic like that.It was a new spell, and I wanted to try it out.I guess I kinda jumped the gun a little.Don't worry Buffy I'm fine, just really, really tired, that's all.Though I wouldn't say no if one of you wanted to hold me up for a while, cause I don't think I can stand all that well right now." Willow explained.

Both Buffy and Xander took a sigh of relief and considered taking turns holding Willow, which was soon no longer a priority as they all heard a massive explosion not twenty meters away."Ofcourse, adrenaline sometimes helps in getting rid of exhaustion." Willow exclaimed as she stood up, ready to run for her life, or to run and help save somebody."So, what do we do?" she asked."Run for home, like scared little, yet cautious and sane, sissies, or run headlong into danger?"

They all exchanged a glance with Buffy, who shrugged, and headed as fast as she could in the general direction of the explosion."Silly me," Willow said as she defied her bodies need of rest and ran after her friends, Xander right behind the blond Slayer.

As they approached, Buffy paused, just outside of the area where the explosion had seemingly occurred.Willow caught up a few seconds later, breathing heavily and feeling the need to faint again.Buffy glanced at her, and worriedly asked, "Will, are you OK?I can probably handle whatever this is by myself.Xander can take you back home."

Willow, with labored breathing, shook her head no."No…'huff, huff'…I'll be…'huff'…OK.'Huff, huff, huff,' Besides, what if…'huff'…you need magic help, or something else.'Huff' I'm OK Buff.See, better already!" Willow finished, right before leaning heavily on the shorter blond woman standing in front of her.

"Yeah, sure, right Will." Buffy said, easily supporting the petite young woman in her arms.

"Um, guys…I think you need to see this." Xander commented from around the corner of the mausoleum they were behind.Buffy held Willow for a moment or two longer, before the redheaded witch took a deep breath and held herself steady, and nodded.Together, they both walked around the stone building.

"What is it, Xan…." Buffy trailed off as both young women caught sight of the scene before them.

Less than thirty feet away from them stood a massive structure.It still fit inside the cemetery, but it was impressive in its own right of existing at all.It consisted of a raised dais nearly 50 square feet in length alone, and another 40 or so, maybe, in width.On the backside, rising up from the back of the dais was a wall, a 30-foot wall that was maybe, 7-inches thick.It also held intricate designs, with no discernable pattern or time period that could be determined about it.That's not all.At the top of this wall, on either side were full size gargoyle statues!

The front portion merely had two columns, one on either side of the dais.Nothing too fancy, just straight Roman columns, except ofcourse that they had green fire at the tops that was the illumination for the area.But the outside was hardly the most impressive part of the structure.In the middle of the dais sat three massive, and massive means 10-feet wide and 18-feet high, thrones.That's all they could be really.The smallest of which was 18-feet high, and the tallest, the center one, nearly reached the top of the back wall.Yet despite the sheer size and shape and design of the thrones, it was nothing compared to the three robed individuals that sat in them.

As amazingly impressive, and awe-inspiring as all of it was, that was not the first thing that the Slayerettes saw.No, the first thing they saw was the fight occurring right in front of structure.A fight between a 7-foot tall, 4-foot wide vampire and a 10-foot tall blue demon looking thing.They weren't quite sure that it was a demon, mostly because while its anatomy was definitely similar to that of earth's, and therefore hell's, it had no mouth, purple eyes (on stalks) and a very long tail, that resembled a Tyrannosaurus Rex's.Also, since it had no mouth, the fact that it was speaking in a language that none of them had ever heard, much less heard of before, made the fact that it was an alien all the more relevant.

As they stood there, the blue alien thingy, or whatever it was, suddenly launched itself what could have been 50 feet in the air, shouted something in its alien language and all of a sudden a massive green fireball shot from its arms and collided with the vampire.Who surprisingly didn't turn to dust as the others did when Willow shot her fireballs at them.It then fell the 50 feet that it jumped, and solidly kicked the vampire in the head, which sent the undead creature some 20 odd feet back towards them.

Normally, any vampire that came across anything that could do what this alien was doing would back off and run scared.This one got back to his feet, growled and launched himself back at the alien and managed to land a solid punch before they began to trade blows almost faster than even Buffy could watch.Unfortunate for the vampire, the blue alien seemed to be getting more and more hits behind the vampire's defenses.Finally, the vampire found an opening and lunged at the alien creature's neck.However, it was not meant to be as the alien grabbed the vampire in one massive fist, muttered something in its alien language that they couldn't quite hear, and then it grabbed the vampire's head in its other hand, and pulled.

The normal scream was emitted from the vampire as it turned to dust in the creature's fist.That is when the three figures on the three thrones stood.Whereas their chairs were massive and tall, _they_ were humongous!The one in the center pointed at the blue creature, who then bowed in respect, and then disappeared in a flash of light.

Just about that time, Rupert Giles, Buffy's Watcher, came running up behind the three of them.Shouting no less."Buffy!Buffy!Willow!Xander!Buffy!" he was screaming as he ran towards them with a book in his raised left hand.

He stopped, just around the corner of the mausoleum behind them and began to speak very rapidly."Buffy, I've found a new prophecy!It involves the Slayer, her watcher, a witch and her ally.There is also something about 'Colossal tests of The Powers That Be,' which I'm afraid to guess at the true meaning.And something else…"

"Giles.I think I know what the meaning is." Buffy says quietly.

Giles was halfway into his next paragraph before he paused at the realization of what she'd said."You what…?" he asked, perplexed as he stepped from around the stone building, looking only at her.

"What do you mean you already know?How could you possibly know…?Did you have another prophetic dream?Buffy, you really must tell me when these dreams occur, there could be dire consequences if I do not have the time to properly research and decipher the dream elements…"

"G-man…" Xander interrupted.

"And another thing…Yes, what is it Xander?" Giles exasperated, looking at him.

Xander's only response was to point behind the elder English Watcher.Giles scrunched his face in confusion, and then letting curiosity get the better of him, he slowly turned around, and looked up."Oh…dear," was all the mid-forties watcher said, staring at the "colossal" figures before him.

"Yeah, I figured that about summed it up." Xander said casually, none of them taking their eyes off of the three robed figures.

Suddenly, the middle figure moved.It had been perfectly still from the moment that the blue alien demon creature, or whatever it had been, disappeared.Now, it moved its arm back to its side, and its hood seemed to move, just the tiniest bit in their direction.They all pretty much knew what that meant.

"OK, three guesses as to what I'm figuring we should do right now." Xander said, in a slightly more panicky tone.

"Run!" Buffy shouted before grabbing Willow and running as fast as she could carry the girl in the direction that they had all just come from.Xander and Giles were two seconds behind them.The figure seemed to sigh, or at least a loud wind could be heard, and its shoulders drooped a bit, but all it did was gesture with its right hand, which when not hidden by its robes, looked like a perfectly normal human hand, in the direction of the group.

As soon as it gestured, Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles found themselves standing before the structure, though it was scaled to much more human terms.Rather than 30 feet thrones, and 20 foot columns, and 70 foot robed titans, they found themselves in front of a half completed structure about the size of Buffy's back yard, and 10 foot columns that still had green fire on the tops.And the robed figures were closer to 7 feet rather than 70.Also, they noticed, as though for the first time, two much smaller figures, both about four feet tall, also wearing robes, but they were styled differently.They stood just outside of the structure.

Remembering, Buffy realized that these two had been there before, during the fight, exactly as they were right now, size and everything.

Taking a look around, Buffy realized they were no longer in the cemetery, and hadn't they just been running?The ground was covered with a thick fog, and when they looked behind them, all they saw was blackness.The only visible source of light was coming from the torches on top the columns, yet the entire area seemed as though it were day, but again, there were no shadows cast that any of them could see.

They all took a minute or two to adapt that something had changed.Willow was the first to comment."Uhm, guys?What, uh what exactly just happened here?"

"What's going on here?Who are you?" Buffy asked in her 'Slayer' voice to the three standing figures.

**_"WE ARE THE POWERS THAT BE.AND YOU, SLAYER, HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO BE OUR CHAMPION IN THE TOURNAMENT OF THE POWERS."_** The central figure seemed to say, though the deep booming voice seemed to resonate from every direction also.

"Giles, you were saying something about a prophecy?" Buffy asked, never taking her eyes off the three robed figures.

"Uh, uhm, y-y-yes.Yes, yes here it is." Giles responded, opening the book that he was still holding in his hand.

And with some slight trepidation, and obvious nervousness, Giles stuttered his way through the prophecy that would change not only all of their destinies, not just their world, and not just _their_ Universe.It would change the very meaning of their existence and purpose in the space/time continuum, and every resonating dimension within the touch of theirs.

THE PROPHECY:

ON THE NIGHT OF THIRD PLAY SECOND PHASE FIRST NIGHT

IN HEAVENS VIEW LACK OF BRIGHTEST LIGHT FOURTH OF WARRIOR'S GIRDLE

SHALL BE CALLED THE SLAYER THE FAIR HAIRED CHILD OF SINEA

ONE MEANT TO DIE YET LIVES TO FIGHT AND CALLS FORTH HER SISTER OF SINEA

CHOSEN ONE MUST BE CHOSEN FOR TRUTH IN DESTINY BEYOND

WITH WATCHER WITCH AND ALLY BESIDE SHALL SHE TAKE THE LIGHT OF TRUTH

FROM SON OF SON OF SON OF ONE EARTHS GREATEST HERO

TO BE CHOSEN FOR ANOTHER ONE MUST WITNESS COLOSSAL FORMS OF POWERS

THAT TO BE TESTED IS TO LEARN THE WISDOM OF HER LIGHT IN TRUTH

DO NOT FEAR THE CHILDREN OF THE HEAVENS ABOVE AND BELOW YOUR LIGHT

THEY BRING THE WAY TO THE TRUTH AND THE TRUTH ITSELF TO YOU

CHOSEN ONE MOVE LIKE LIGHTNING STRIKE LIKE WATER FLY LIKE WIND FIGHT

POWERS CHOOSE THEIR CHAMPIONS WISE DOUBT NOT YOUR ALLY

HIS TIME SHALL SOON COME TOGETHER WITH YOURS AND HE WILL BE YOURS

"Well, that is about it, I'm afraid." Giles said as he finished the prophecy.He closed the book and looked up at the three faces that were staring blankly at him."What?" he asked innocently.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Buffy asked, looking at her Watcher, the man with all the answers to everything supernatural, so far, in or on the Hellmouth.Which as far as she knew, they were no longer on.

"Uh, um, well, I…I suppose…" Giles stuttered until Xander interrupted him."You don't know, do you?" he said in a biting sarcastic voice.

"Well, um…no.No, I don't." Giles said dejectedly, looking down.

**_"Well, we do, if you'd like to hear the basic meaning and proper translation into English texts."_** Said the robed figure just to the left of the central figure.(The figure's left)

With that, the four turned to face the three giants.Just because they weren't 60 feet high up didn't mean they weren't still tall.Now that she looked, Buffy could see slight differences in the three figures.The one in the middle was the tallest, and its robe was trimmed in gold.The one on its (the figure's) left was a few inches shorter than it, and was trimmed in silver.The one on the right was much shorter than the others, and its robes were soft beige and lined with a deep green.

"What do you mean?Who are you?What is going on here?" Buffy rapid-fired asked.

Again the center one seemed to sigh as he repeated his earlier answer, though in a less booming voice.**_"We are the Powers That Be.And you, Slayer, have been chosen to be our champion in the tournament of the Powers."_**

"Yeah, I heard all that.But what does that mean?In case you hadn't noticed, we don't exactly know what's going on.And until we do, I'm not going to be anybody's champion in any tournament.Now I'm going to ask only one more time.WHAT IS GOING ON!!!?" Buffy screamed.

At this statement, the two smaller figures turned to look at the three larger ones.The three standing figures stiffened, as though shocked or scared of something.After a moment or two the smaller robes, as Buffy was beginning to think of them, returned to their original positions, and the big robes seemed to come to some sort of decision.

**_"Allow us to explain,"_** the one in beige and green said, **_"We are by title, and rite, The Powers That Be.We are the guardians of the Balance of Justice, keepers of the Ancient arts of Time and Space.We are the masters of the Champions of Light, and the source of all such power in this universe.We hold a depth of power against the darkness of chaos and destruction.Once there was balance between the two.That was shattered with the beginning of the war.The war of Good and Evil.The very war that you have been destined to fight in from birth.We strive to maintain as much of the balance as possible, yet strive that "Good" will triumph over Evil.We are the ones that chose you, Buffy."_**

The use of her name is the least of which startles her.And she's not the only one affected by the higher being's words.Both Willow and Giles know who and what these creatures are.Buffy has a clue, but Xander is completely in the dark.

"Oh, wow." Willow says, looking like she's about to faint.

"Oh my word…" Giles trails off as her removes his glasses, cleans them on his shirt and places them back on his nose.Buffy doesn't take her eyes off the three big robes, and Xander is caught playing ping pong with his eyes between Giles, Willow, Buffy, and the three big robes.

"With you so far." Buffy responds.

**_"Perhaps, I might assist, dear sister."_** The one in silver says to green.**_"I suppose it would do if you knew just a tiny portion of the history of the ages, so that you might fully understand, as you put it, 'what's going on.'"_**

**_"Approximately, 75 hundred eons before the dawn of man, demons, gods, or even the war between Good and Evil, there existed three beings.All of enormous power.One, named Moranish, could control the fabric, movement, and nearly the existence of Time.The second, his brother, Daemonitoch controlled the patterns and types of all forms of Energy.The third, their sister, Serenitol was mistress of all matter, mass, and space that was not controlled by her brothers.Together, they worked to achieve balance within the universe that was once one.Then, something happened.The three disappeared, and their powers were left unchecked.Nobody truly knows exactly what happened, but there are many stories and many more accounts.With the powers of Time, Energy, and Space no longer controlled or balanced, chaos reigned.The single Universe of infinite space began to warp and change sporadically.The creator of all things saw this, and seeing that the children he had given the power to were gone, he made it so that all he had created would not die in chaos, but live in an infinite variety of ways.Thus was the beginning of the Multi-verse.Many different universes, dimensions, planets, choices, events and destinies suddenly became divided and anything was possible."_**

**_"Yet this is not the way that it was meant to be.So other children were called, to take the power of Time, Energy, and Space as their own.Yet three could not be called.Nor could any be found that were ready and understood the power that they were told to possess.So it was all given to two.A brother and a sister.Together they would control all Time, all Energy, and have power over all Space.But only together."_**

"The two who were chosen were new to the Multi-verse.To reality really.So when they were given this power, and told what they were to do with it.They thought it would be easy.When they tried to combine all the separate universes back into one, chaos ensued yet again.They were not meant to change things back to the way they were, they were meant to make order and sense out of the chaos of the Multi-verse.So they did.They spent the next 50 eons exploring each universe, in all time periods, on all tracks and paths and decisions.They knew how everything worked, and understood all.Except for three things.Good.Evil.And Sentient Beings.Good, was nothing but order and the total and complete lack of evil or rejection thereof.Evil was chaos, greed, anger, rage, all self-destructive emotions and states.Because the Powers, as they called themselves since there was only two of them and they controlled the powers of reality, were meant to bring balance to reality, they could not understand why "Good" was better than "Evil" or why "Evil" fought so hard, only to kill itself later on.The concept of pure universes of either was beyond their grasp, as it is with so many.Yet, what confused them the most was Sentient Beings, creatures with free will, emotions, and everything that makes them unique to each other, could choose one exclusively over the other.They did not understand the war of Good and Evil, which aside from them was the only constant in every universe of the Multi-verse."

"They aren't the only ones kind of confused by that." Buffy commented as The Power That Talked paused for a moment.

**_"Well, yes.It would take somebody insane and with the knowledge of the Powers to fully understand it all.Because that is all it really is.Insanity.Yet, in choosing a side, we, The Powers That Be, have decided to wield champions in defense of those that are pure Good against the champions that are and support pure Evil.So, 10 eons ago, after the fall of demon kind on Earth, the Powers decided that they wanted to know who was stronger, those that fought in defense of Good, because those that were Good could not fight, otherwise they would no longer be pure Good.Or those that fought in the name and powers of Evil and darkness.To put it simply, they asked everybody why this was the way it is, and who would eventually win, if anybody.The answer was, I don't know.Every time.So they put it to a test.Taking a single sampling from each universe, only the strongest of each, those that fought for Good, and those that fought for Evil.They would then fight to the death.Those that would win, would continue living until the next tournament, where it would start over until a complete outcome would be decided."_**

Everybody scrunched his or her face in confusion."Well, what's the point of that?" Xander blurted out.All attention was drawn to him as the one in gold, the one that spoke the least but was obviously the leader, answered his question.

**_"So that the Powers would be able to understand the war of Good and Evil, by witnessing just the smallest portion of it.They would also grant you immortality, save for when you fight in the Tournament.You would not die of being the Slayer, and none of you could die in the ways of this world, you would only die in the Tournament.The rules are not many, but rather complex.They will be explained to you when you accept this destiny."_** He said.Buffy was sure it was a 'he'.

Xander again, blurted out; "Again, what's the point of having a tournament where the only prize is you don't die until the next fight?"

This time, surprisingly, one of the smaller figures spoke, but not in the commanding boom of The Powers That Be, but rather the voice of a young child."The point is, we grant you a level of power that would be of considerable use to you in your universe, as well as immortality, and you kill demons and creatures of evil from all over the cosmos.Also, to be aware, the rules are quite clear; every fight is to the death, unless both opponents agree to stop.Except in the final round.Only there _must_ the fight end in the death of one side or the other."

"We?" Xander asked.

"The Powers." The small robed figure answered.He then removed his hood, revealing the face and head of a young blond haired boy about the age of 8.The other figure, on the other side of the structure, also removed her hood, revealing a young blond haired girl of the same apparent age.

"Whoa." Was the only response out of the lanky dark haired youth.Giles just stared, and Willow, she looked like she was smiling at them.Buffy on the other hand could almost sense the power they held, and knew first hand how appearances could be deceiving.Buffy decided to push the envelope, seeing if she enraged these Powers by dissing them and their _"sport"_, then maybe they would make a mistake and she could get them out of there.

"OK, hold it." Buffy said in a loud clear voice."You're telling me that the masters of the universe are a couple of 8 year old kids?Get real.And I don't know what game you three are playing, but if you are the all-mighty Powers That Be, then you'll understand that I don't like being toyed with.I got stuck with this destiny crap because you are too lazy to take care of these things by yourself, so you send little girls to take care of it for you, and so what if they die young, they're your champions, you can do with them as you please.Well, buckos, listen up, and listen up good, I am not your lap dog, and I am not something that you can just trade off to impress your bosses.And I am not fighting for anybody, except for myself."

"And as for you two, if you really are these Powers that I don't for a second believe even exist, you can take your damn _sport_ and shove it up your asses for all I care.I'm not about to enter a street fight for two higher being's pleasure when the only reward I get is another fight where hopefully I won't die.Thanks but no thanks."And with that, Buffy turns around and starts walking away.Not really towards anything, but rather away from the five robed figures and their "destiny".

"Buffy?" Willow says as the blond walks past her.

**_"SLAYER!"_** The central gold figure yells, but she keeps on walking.

**_"Buffy…"_** The one in green trails off.She seems sympathetic, but also needs Buffy as much as the rest of them.

"Perhaps we should better explain, Ms. Summers." The blond girl says, just before Buffy reappears right in front of her.

"How?What just…?" Buffy stuttered as she realized what happened.

"My name is Serena.Serena Power.My twin brother, Samuel Power and I agreed to this tournament, and its rules a very long time ago.Even by our standards.Though to you we may look young, it is only a partial illusion.We truly have no true forms or bodies, but according to our species, this is the stage of our current maturity and growth.We often take on the appearance of the species that we wish to join in the Tournament.In doing so with humans, we are currently at the stage of maturity between that of childhood and what you call pubescence.So it is safe to say, that yes we are children, but only for our species, because we are far older than even The Powers That Be appear to be."

"Oh, wow.And they only look a few millennia old." Buffy says sarcastically.The blond child, Serena, smiles and turns to look at the three robed creatures of light and justice.

"Fine.We will then, how you said, get to the point." The young boy, Samuel, said just a second before Buffy suddenly appeared in front of him.

"The point of the Tournament is as these said it was, an experiment to understand the war between Good and Evil.Yet it is also what you said it is, our sport.Though we do not play in it, nor do we interfere.We watch, we learn and we try to understand.When these said that we did not fully understand Sentient Beings, they were not entirely correct, nor were they entirely incorrect.Ms. Summers, we, my sister and I, do not have emotions.Not even the simplest of them.Fear?What have we to fear?Anger?We are meant to maintain balance, so what can anger us if it is meant to be?Pleasure?We get no pleasure from watching beings kill each other, and themselves.Nor do we get pleasure in watching creatures born, only to die a second later.So, we try and find pleasure, entertainment, a minor occupation to relieve the boring task of watching everything in the cosmos, in watching two factions of the Multi-verse live, fight, and die with each other. Can you say anything about yourself, or your species that would put you above us in this?"

Buffy was about to say something, when she actually thought about the question, she realized that if anything, humans were probably the worst to compare to higher beings that conduct a fair street fight against beings that would kill themselves anyway.This way, they might have a chance to get out alive and as long as they don't die in this tournament, then they'd get to live forever, or whatever.

"OK.You made your point.I give.Doesn't mean that I have to fight in it.Between fighting in your tournament, wherever it is, and fighting my own battles at home I wouldn't exactly get that much of a rest, and besides, I don't fight alone.I have my Scooby's to back me up." Buffy conceded.

At this, Samuel arched one eyebrow."Actually your wrong, at least on one point._You_ do have to fight.Well, not necessarily _you_, but a Slayer does have to fight in the Tournament.If you outright refuse, we will not force you, but your refusal means that another Slayer must be chosen.You are the first we've approached, so we find it highly unlikely that you will refuse."

"Are you threatening me?" Buffy asked angrily."You're saying that if I don't say yes, you'll just ask the next Slayer that comes along?I take it that your last Slayer finally kicked the bucket huh?Is that all you need, a Slayer?Well why not go back in time and get the first one, I'm sure she would appreciate living forever a lot more than I want to fight for you."

"No, Buffy, you misunderstand." Serena interrupted."We do not want a _Slayer_, we want you, and if you refuse, we would go to another universe and ask that Buffy.We would keep asking until one of you said yes.But you are the first that we have asked, and in doing so, we have arranged your entire destiny on you entering the Tournament.There will be creatures, demons, humans, and evil entities coming that are too strong for you as you are.If you enter the Tournament, not only will we make you immortal, but also we would give you the possibility of reaching your true power, something you will need in the years to come.Only by reaching your full potential could you ever hope to defeat what will be coming.And we would not even think of asking you to do this alone."

"What do you mean?" Buffy asked.

Samuel answered."You would be the primary representative of your team, and your team will be, as you put it, your Scooby's.They will also fight in the Tournament, and will also be given immortality, and the possibility of reaching their true powers.A team, in the Tournament, may consist of 1 being, two, and as high as eight.That is why we waited for this night, a night when all four of you would be together, and in a place where you were not protected, if not by the Hellmouth, then by your respective dwellings.Understand, you must all agree to this, we will force no one.If even one of you has the smallest doubt, we will wipe this from your minds and ask another."

Everyone was quiet after that.Buffy looked back at her friends, still huddled together in the middle of the clearing, or wherever they were, but she did not move to go to them.Thinking everything over, Buffy came to a decision."Can we talk it over?" she asked quietly of the boy in front of her.He nodded, and she found herself facing her three friends.Looking around, she saw that all the robed figures had left, but the structure and surrounding blackness remained.

"What do you guys think?" Buffy asked.She looked at each in turn.Willow, on her right was showing concern for her friend, but also seemed to trust the creatures that had brought them here.She was for it.

Giles, in front of her, had the funniest look she had ever seen on his face.Utter confusion.Though this was not the time to laugh.If she knew anything about her Watcher in the time that she'd known him, he wanted to consult his books, maybe contact a few resources, and basically research the entire tale just told to them.Then he'd offer his educated opinion and say that it was Buffy's choice.

Xander was more of an enigma to Buffy.He looked both excited and scared.Yet, judging from a look, she'd guess that he would say no.He was always the cautious, at least when it came to fighting demons, one.Mostly to save his own hide, or to save Buffy's, or Willow's.Taking everything she knew about him into account, as well as the possibility that he heard the comment about how they all would also find their true powers, she knew that Xander would support her decision, though he would complain and make plenty of sarcastic remarks about it afterwards.

As for her own feelings, Buffy wanted more and more to say yes.The concept of immortality for her, when her life expectancy was less than 21, was mind-boggling.She could actually live long enough to be with Angel.She could live.Then they had spoken of how they had already altered her destiny.Whatever her true power was that they promised her, she would need it to fight whatever uglies would be coming her way.And they would come for her, whether she entered the Tournament or not.If she didn't, then that would mean that she might not be able to protect her friends and family.She wouldn't…couldn't save them.If anything happened to any one of her friends; Giles, Xander, her mother…Willow, she wouldn't be able to stand it.She'd say yes, especially if it meant protecting her family.

It wouldn't be that bad really, at least the others would be with her, and they could protect each other.Taking everything into account, Buffy knew beyond doubt that her answer was yes.But first, she had to hear what the others would say about it all.

After the moments of uncomfortable silence, Buffy asked again, "So, what do you guys think?Unless all of us say yes, I'm going to say no.This is all or none."

"Well, that is certainly a change of tactics…" Giles muttered under his breath, but the rest could hear him just fine.Buffy and Xander knew exactly what he was referring to.Willow didn't.

"What do you mean Giles?" Willow asked.

Giles looked uncomfortable for a minute or so, unable to look at Willow, embarrassed by his selfish and rude comment.Fortunate for him, Buffy answered for him."He means, Will, when I knocked him cold just before I went off to face the Master.Giles didn't like the prophesy about me dying any more than I did, so he was going to go and face the Master himself."Buffy paused long enough to look at Willow, and then look Giles in the eye." I couldn't let him, though.As much as I was afraid of dying before I had even lived, I…I was more afraid of losing him.Besides, it was the whole destiny, 'it is written' stuff, so I figured it had to be me, or it would be everybody.Turns out, it was nobody.Thanks to Xander, and Angel, I didn't die, I kicked vamp butt, and here we stand today.In front of two higher beings, offering us training that we'll, or at least I'll need, in order to even begin to handle some of the things that will be heading our way. Ofcourse, we'll also have to participate in a street fight tournament that goes to the death, but as long as we live, we still have each other to live for."

Giles stared back at Buffy, his surrogate daughter of the year and a half that he's known her.If she only knew the truth about me… he thought to himself.She would never forgive me.But could I forgive myself if I let her pass up an opportunity that will not only save us, but save her as well? He asked.No.No was the only answer to that question.The only answer.

Giles nodded his head nearly imperceptibly.Buffy looked at Xander.He was the only other one who she could possibly imagine having complaints about this.Xander was actually looking at Willow, who was looking back at him, with an unreadable expression on her face."Xander?What do you have to say?" Buffy asked.

Xander glanced at the blond, and then shifted his gaze back to the redhead.Then he said in a clear and confident voice, " I'm with whatever you and Willow decide.But just so you'll know, I'm hoping you say yes, because if we all get training, then I get to be super strong too, right?Then I'll be able to kick demon ass just like you and Angel.Maybe even better than Angel."

Buffy smiled and shook her head in wry amusement.Then she turned to Willow.She swore she knew almost exactly what the young wicca was thinking.She was scared, but she was excited by the prospect of meeting and learning from higher plane beings.Yet again, she knew that Willow would choose the same choice Buffy would, and she would never leave Buffy alone.Not with a choice like this, no she would choose…

"No." Willow answered in an unmistakable voice.Buffy blinked, Xander did a double take, and Giles took off his glasses, squinted at Willow, and put them back on."Excuse me?" Buffy and Xander said as one."No." Willow repeated."No I don't think we should do it.Or more to the point, I shouldn't do it.If you guys want to go ahead, go right ahead.I'll stay here in…back in Sunnydale until you get back.Me and Angel can handle patrol for a few nights."

"Will, I would never ask you to do that.And I meant what I said.This is all or none.If you don't want to go, then we won't go.Besides, I'm not about to leave my best friend alone with my boyfriend on long moonlit walks through graveyards.You might try to steal him away." Buffy said jokingly.Yet her smile was short lived, as she turned around to face the robed figures, which had appeared the moment she did so.

"I'm sorry.My answer is no.Go to the next Buffy, or Slayer, or whatever, but my answer is no." she said to the two small robed children, which were surprisingly the only figures there, and were standing in front of the three thrones.

"As you wish, Slayer.Your minds will be erased of this event and you and your friends will be placed where they were before we arrived in your universe, and all shall continue as destined." Samuel stated.He sounded like a robot pronouncing sentence.

"WAIT!" Willow screamed suddenly."Yes Willow?" Serena says calmly.

"That's it!That's just it?I say no, Buffy says no, and you just leave us with whatever you set up to come after us?" Willow screeched.

"No Willow.We did not set up anything." Serena answered."This Buffy was destined to be different from the others.She was destined to be in the Tournament, and through fighting and surviving in it, would become far stronger than all the others.By that destiny, she could not evenly fight the enemies that other Slayers had fought.The tip of power to her side would have to be balanced out.Stronger enemies, more evils to stop, some developed because of this, others that were there all along and this was the only way she could stop them.It is a very complicated matter, Willow, one that has many sides and far many more variables."

Willow looked torn for a moment.Then she grabbed Buffy by the arm and stared her in the eye."Buffy?What do you want to do?" Willow asked.Buffy smiled, eyes never leaving her friend's, "I want to protect my family.Yes Willow, I want to do it.But not if you have so much as a single doubt about it."

Willow smiled at her best friend.She hugged her, relishing the contact, perhaps a bit more than she should have, but still.Then a confused look, that Buffy knew so well, crossed the wicca/hacker's face."What is it Will?"

Willow turned to the blond haired twins."What do you mean, 'have the possibility of reaching our true powers'?" she asked.The twins smiled as one at her innocent question.

"Say yes, and you'll find out." Serena answered cryptically.Samuel elaborated."Your greatest strengths will be multiplied, your weakest strengths will be enhanced, and your weaknesses will be overcome.We will send you to a dimension that was set aside by members of 'Good' that wished to better their chances in the Tournament.There you will be trained and taught about fighting and about your power, and what it means to have such.For 6 weeks."

"6 weeks!" They all shouted.

"Well, 6 weeks to you.But to your world it would be no more than 3 days." Serena elaborated further."We would return you, upon completion of your training, to the exact spot that you were taken from exactly 74 hours after you left.Yet, since you are immortal, or will be immortal, such time will no longer matter as much.If you are worried about loved ones missing you, or your responsibilities being neglected, if you wished, we would allow it so that excuses could be made, and others would help or "take care" of said responsibilities."

"What kind of help?" Buffy asked.

"I believe you mentioned an Angel?We would subconsciously trigger worry in his mind, causing him to go out looking for all of you, and therefore his worry would permit him to take actions against the vampire community, and therefore "patrol" is taken care of.Also we can send anonymous notes to your school and parents if you wish."

Buffy's eyes lit up at the last one.She turned back to Willow, "Well, Will?Anymore doubts or reasons to say no?"

Willow stared straight-faced at the twin pair of powers before them, then shrugged, and broke out in her biggest grin as she faced the blond Slayer."No." she replied almost giddily.

"Well, that's three for go Giles.What's your vote?" Buffy stated, turning to her watcher.

"Like you really have to ask.Ofcourse yes!" the old Brit announced angrily.

"Well, then I guess you have your answer, Sam…" Buffy trailed off as they all realized that they were no longer in the dark foggy clearing in front of a columned dais.They were now in a stainless steel cubed room, with lights emitting from the edges of the ceiling and floor.At a quick glance around the room, Buffy noticed the possible outline of a door on one wall, but there was no way to be for certain until it opened, and there were no handles or hinges on this side of it, if it was a door.

There appeared to be no other way out of the room, and noticing the other's looks of panic, they were realizing the same thing.However, despite the floors and walls being seamless, didn't mean that the room was empty.For one it had them in it, and another, there was a couch and four comfortable looking chairs scattered about the room.Despite them being in a random order, they all seemed to face the center of the room, which really wasn't all that great, just stainless steel floor and stainless steel ceiling.

"I guess we wait then," said Buffy as she took to the couch.It was really comfortable.

Suddenly, there was a loud hiss that lasted but a microsecond.All eyes turned towards the source, where the place that Buffy had assumed was a door had seemingly disappeared, and a tall imposing youthful man stood just inside the room."Well, I guess you don't have to wait that long then, huh?" he said in a voice full of sarcasm.

Buffy immediately jumped to her feet and went to the front of the room, placing herself between this man and her friends."Who are you, what do you want?" she barked out.She took but a moment to look this guy over.

He was tall, maybe 6'1", 6'2".He was built.Even beneath his loose leather jacket and billowy black pants, she could see this guy had muscles on muscles.He also wore a sword just over his right shoulder; she could see the foot long hilt.He had long, wild, solid black hair that seemed to go every way but down, except for his bangs which just brushed his forehead.He had black, with hints of brown and green, eyes, and he had a strong streamlined jaw.Something else that struck her as funny was that he had a brown fur belt around his waist.

"My name is Goku.And I am your trainer for your stay here at the Compound.What I want is for you to win long enough to actually have a life outside of this godforsaken place.In order to do that, you have to be stronger than me, and every other fighter here.That's the only way that you'll win at the tournament, and the only thing that'll get me off your backs for the next six weeks." He answered her questions.Then he did something truly terrifying, he smiled.

Buffy suddenly felt like she had signed them all up for boot camp in the hell's army, and began to wish that she had said no.The smile that "Goku" had just given them was a smile that she gave to vampires that were too cocky for their own good, and that she could beat blindfolded and tied down.Oh yeah they were in for some deep…


	2. The Training

Champions Of The Universe: 

** **

**The Training:**

"OK, enough lollygagging around.Let's get a move on!" Goku shouted at them as he stepped back from the door and pointed them through it.Squinting her eyes in mistrust, Buffy silently walked through, followed closely by the others.

When they were outside the chamber, Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles immediately noticed the sheer size of the place they had been taken to.They appeared to be on a platform, who knew how high up, that various people and species in general were walking on, sort of like in the movie Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back, in that cloud city thing.Well, they were definitely in a city.All around them and their platform were massive buildings, skyscrapers, and other connecting platforms, some of which connected to the skyscrapers and buildings, and others that just connected to other platforms.And littered throughout the sky were numerous aircraft, ranging from slow moving giant box crates, to fast moving tubes and people sized craft.

"Holy schnikes!" Xander exclaimed as they all tried to take it in.

Goku looked around.He had had a similar reaction when he had first arrived here.But now, after nearly thirty years, it kind of wore off.Especially since he spent most of his time on the inside of these buildings and structures.He never had time to enjoy the scenery anymore.Oh, well.That was why he took to training new recruits.Better than doing all the rest of what this place was doing.

But whatever.These kids were here for a reason, and he was here to teach them that reason, and in as little time as possible.There was no time for "smelling the roses" as the saying went."Hey!" he shouted at them.

"Let's GO!" when he had their attention.

"What's your rush?" Buffy complained, as they picked up the pace.

The man introduced only as "Goku" merely raised an eyebrow and led them on.His quick pace forced even Buffy to jog in order to keep pace with him.She tried several more times to get him to speak to her, or at least explain what was going on, yet he remained as silent as Angel in a broody moment.Soon they came to…a portal was the only way to describe it.It was about ten feet tall and in general circumference, since it was a giant black hole in the wall of the building they were next to.Goku made a slight motion with his hands, indicating that they should wait there, Xander and Willow didn't really have a problem with that idea, due to the fact that as soon as they stopped, they bent over, clutching their sides and out of breath.

Buffy couldn't blame them, they weren't used to the long haul at a quick pace, and even she was pretty winded by what seemed to be a two mile run from the room they had arrived in.There was also something funky about the air and the gravity in general.It was heavier than usual and the air was humid and hot.Geez, hadn't these people ever heard of air conditioning?

Whatever it was that Goku was doing, he had apparently finished as he walked back to the group of tired humans.When Buffy turned to greet him, she was surprised to see the black hole in the side of the building was now a hole into a somewhat large room.

"If you don't mind, just jump through and we can get you settled in." Goku was saying, indicating the portal.

"Hold on just a minute!What the hell is going on here?Who are you?And what is this, this place!Gawd, what _is this_ place?" Buffy was asking in total disbelief.

Goku only looked at her with something like pity, only more insulting."I'll take it that you almost said no.Figures.Don't worry girl, you'll get your answers soon enough.Just jump through and we'll get you settled into your room," was all he said.

"No, I don't think so!I want some answers, and I want them now!We aren't going anywhere until you, or somebody answers them.Now either you start talking, or I might get angry, and trust me spiky, you don't want to see me angry." Buffy said in her "Slayer" voice.

Now the stranger, Goku, looked confused and slightly, no make that majorly annoyed as he considered what the blond human had just said to him."Spiky?" he asked incredulously.Then he rolled his eyes up, remembering his hair."Oh.Well whatever girl.Just jump through, We're short enough on time as it is, and if you want the whole tour or the two cent one that'll leave you high and dry, it's your choice.But if you keep wasting time, you won't have that for much longer.Now jump through." Goku ordered.

"That does it!" Buffy yelled as she launched herself at the taller, visibly stronger, and strangely calm man.She landed solidly with her foot against his chin.She was actually surprised that she had managed to complete the flying kick.So far in training with Giles she had only managed to do it twice, and even then both were far from perfect.It made little difference as she barely made the guy move his head, before the stronger gravity took over and she barely managed to get her hands underneath her in time to do a flying backwards handspring.

Once she landed nimbly on her feet, she launched herself at him again, staying on the ground mostly though, and hitting him with her best kicks and punches she could throw at him.He only raised his right eyebrow in a similar fashion to a wrestler she had seen once on WWU.Finally, Goku's patience wore out and he picked up the small blond girl by the arm she threw a punch at him with, and physically threw her through the portal.

"Buffy!!" the other three humans shouted, and all three ran surprisingly quickly and jumped through the portal, almost as one.

"Well, geez, if that's all it took…" Goku muttered as he levitated himself and flew through the circle, which faded back to black as soon as he was through.

As the last individual came through the red circle on the wall, it de-energized and was just a big red spot on the wall, with a flat black square next to it on the left.The four humans, including the blond girl he had thrown through, were piled on the floor right in front of him.Fortunately he was flying, so there was no issue of being crowded.

"Ahem!" he coughed loudly, making them aware of his presence.

Slowly they sorted themselves out and untangled from each other and stood.After this, Goku landed right behind the blond girl that had attacked him.He liked her.She was no doubt the reason as to why the Powers had sent them here in the first place.She was also head strong and thought she was strong enough to take anybody out, or at least make them regret they fought with her.Hoo boy was she in for a shock.

"Ahem," he said again, though much quieter.The girl jumped, then turned around and combo'ed a powerful punch and kick at him.He easily, almost too easily, dodged the kick and grabbed her fist.He squeezed _very_ lightly, enough to make her know he was strong, but not enough to break her fist.And also that she knew he was still holding back.

"All right, _grunt_, who, _grunt_, are you?" she asked, trying to remove her fist from his.

"I told you.My name is Goku.I'm your trainer for the next six weeks.I take it that you are…" he paused as he pulled a small devise from his jacket pocket, that opened to a long flat panel, which he apparently read some information from."…Buffy Summers, the Vampire Slayer of the year 1997 in Sunnydale, California, of Dimension 2ZXEC-A.U.237-4561-659.1 in Universe of Spectral Grid 2, 35.The rest of these weaklings must be your team.I think I have my work cut out for me." Goku answered, maintaining his grip on her hand with the other.

"Uh, would you mind letting go of me, _Goku_." She asked strenuously.

"OK." He said rather cheerily, releasing her hand."And by the way," he added, dead serious, "don't ever call me _spiky_ again, got it?"

She only nodded, her eyes squinted in distrust.Absentmindedly, she was stroking her fist, but not out of discomfort or pain, but of imaginative uses for wiping that smug grin off her "trainer's" face."OK, Goku, what's the deal?Ten minutes ago, I'm watching some alien blue thing tear a huge vampire in half, then the Powers That Be, no less, show up and shout out about some story about two kids that apparently control all of existence.Then they "invite" me into this little tournament of there's, which excuse me if I'm right, but sounds a lot like a rich man's street fight.Then they blackmail me, saying that I was destined to say yes, and that if I don't I might not be able to handle the stronger demons that I'll have to fight.Then, as soon as I turn around to say yes, we're in an empty room and thirty seconds later you show up and throw me through a hole in the wall!Now all I want is some answers, I'm sure you can handle that, right?"Buffy turned the question into an insult by adding, "For one as bright as you seem to be anyway."

Goku's grin lost its pleasantness and decided to play along with the girl.He scrolled down the list on his Global, and read up on the others.Their codenames had already been assigned, as had their position, their schedule, and their conditioning workout.Yeesh, he didn't have it that tough when he had got there.Apparently this girl had a lot of potential, and the Council wanted to bring it out, as soon as possible.That meant half killing the girl and her friends.He felt slightly sorry for the blonde Slayer, Buffy.Slightly.

"OK, what do you want to know?" Goku asked, as he stepped back from Buffy and slowly walked to the other side of the room, letting them realize, as their eyes followed him, where they were.It was a fairly large room, maybe twenty feet high, and domed.There were beams, steel colored but in such a crazy place nobody could say that it was actually steel, going from the walls to the center point of the dome.And on the walls was a faded white padding, going from the floor to seven feet up them.Inbetween the steel beams, on the wall part with the padding they were even with the rest of the wall, were a number of doors, and then the red spot they had just come through.There were maybe six doors altogether and they all looked like the doors from Star Trek: The Next Generation, except blue.Then there was the room itself.

It was about the floor size of the school gym, and included a bar in one corner that they took to be a kitchenette or something similar.In the middle of it, underneath the spotlight in the center of the dome, was a plush carpeted area with furniture similar to what they saw in the room they had arrived in.A comfortable looking black leather, or similar material, couch; six chairs, two recliner-like, and the rest just for sitting on, and next to the carpeted area was a large circular table that was gray and looked like it was made of plastic, but later when Buffy touched it, it felt like porcelain.There was also a workout area set aside and other things that might have been decorations if not for what they had already seen told them otherwise.

"OK, first question:" Buffy announced, "Where are we?All that the Powers said was that we would be training for the next six weeks in some place that the forces of Good had set aside to help them in the tournament.How much of that is true?"

Goku grimaced a little and decided then and there to never tell her, unless directly asked, about his suspicions of corruption within the Compound."That's the basic story of it.It's called the 'Compound'.And it is actually its own universe that said "Forces of Good" asked the Powers to make for them.These forces of Good are called the 'Council'.They're inter-dimensional beings, meaning that they exist higher than normal reality, but no where near the levels of the Powers and what some people have called the Powers That Be.This Council then selected the greatest warriors of light, and the most powerful, of several separate realities, brought them here, told them the story that the Powers not doubt already told you, and asked them to not only fight in the Tournament, but to train all the new recruits that would be coming in.By this dimensions standards, that was over 200,000 years ago.Since then, a pretty good curriculum has been set up, and we haven't lost a Tournament for nearly three hundred years.Ofcourse the only sure fire way to win the Tournament is to either have one team beat everything Evil throws at them, or to not let so much as one of our fighters die.That hasn't happened for 150 years." Goku told them.

They all looked at each other and exchanged the various "What have we gotten ourselves into?" looks, then Buffy turned back to Goku."OK, second question:What's your story in all of this?Were you one of these original fighters slash trainers?"

Goku shook his head no."No, I was like you, a recruit from my own universe.But in my universe, I at least had a history and partial training in the fighting and martial arts that are taught here.Before I was brought here, I was a pretty good fighter.For the past twenty-two years, I've been the best.Now, I teach the new guys.It gets me some time off, and away from home longer than a night or two every three months."

"OK, hold on." Buffy interrupted."First, you've been here for 22 years?!!"

"No, thirty actually.It took me almost eight years to develop enough of a reputation, and my body to deserve it.Every tournament I've entered I've won.Meaning that I survived and came out alive of the Final Round.Well, except for my first few tournaments, those I didn't do too well on.And I didn't even make it to the Final Round until my fifth year here.That roughly translates to 20 tournaments that I got my ass kicked around the ring that even "Evil" had to take pity and let me live each time."

Buffy was confused for a moment, then thought of another question."How does that work?I mean, the whole Tournaments thing?When are they held, like every other week or so?And twenty tournaments in five years?For all of Evil and Good to fight and kill each other?How long do these Tournaments last anyway?"

"Whoa there!Slow down." Goku interrupted her."OK, the Tournaments?Well, the actual Tournament is held about every three months or so, and you can base it on your own home universe's sense of time, even if it may be different for everybody else.But that's just the actual tournament of Good vs. Evil.There are also preliminary tournaments held here in the Compound between all the fighters here.Here, its non-lethal and you're out when you're K.O.'d.But those preliminaries are designed to say who actually gets to go to the big Tournament.Some, like me, who've won more Tournaments than I care to remember, has an automatic go.Others, newbies like yourselves, have to work it for the first few years.The preliminaries are held about halfway between the real Tournaments.Usually about a month and a half or so, depending if it's a leap year or not."

"As for how long the Tournament is, it usually lasts about two days here for us.For your own universe, its about one night.The preliminaries last about five days here, but again, only a night in your universe.So, what do you think so far?We haven't even seen where we'll be spending most of our time." Goku spun around, showing the room off.

"These are actually your quarters for your stay here.Despite all the obvious preparation for your arrival, these were the only quarters that were available, and they were made for at least six people.Don't worry though.Oh, and the bedrooms are through the respective doors.If you want, you can program to open with your DNA, or voice pattern, or just set them on low motion, otherwise the air will be opening and closing them for you." Goku explained.

"Wait a minute.What do you mean, "despite all the obvious preparation for our arrival"?You've been expecting us?" Buffy asked, slightly taken aback by the news.

"Well, yes.The Powers don't just drop people off in those comfortable waiting rooms and expect us to handle everything about them instantly.They tell us of possible new arrivals.One doesn't show up, we know they said no.As you can see, a schedule and special curriculum have been set up just for you." Goku explained, handing the Global to Willow, who took it, a fascinated look on her face, and read it.She then passed it on to Buffy, who paled dangerously close to "vampire" skin.Goku casually noticed that the screen was currently on her own workout schedule.

Buffy, feeling more than a little overwhelmed handed the modified palm pilot, or whatever the hell it was, over to Giles, who worked some of the touch pad commands and read his own schedule.He coughed slightly, and handed it to Xander, then removed his glasses, rubbed his nose, and _put the glasses in his pocket_.Buffy had never seen him do that before.

Xander, not one hundred percent understanding what he was seeing, glances at the gray device and hands it back to Willow, whom then returns it to Goku.

"You aren't actually going to get us started on…on, on that-that…_that_," indicating the Global, "are you?Today I mean." Buffy seemed really nervous about it for whatever reason.

"No, today is purely meant to get you settled in here.Tomorrow is when we start the schedule.And in case you were wondering, tomorrow, for most people around here, starts at 12:00 A.M.So, what do you want first; the tour, or some demonstrations of what you'll be learning here?" Goku asked.

Buffy was about to answer, when Willow beat her to the punch, "I think the tour would be a good idea, don't you Buffy?I mean, we have six weeks to learn and see demonstrations of what we'll be learning, but this is probably our only chance to actually see this place.And it's plenty big enough without the tour, ya know?"

Buffy nodded her head, conceding and understanding what Willow was saying."I guess it's the tour then.Where do we start?How about the bathrooms?"

Goku smiled, getting the hint.He glanced at his Global, and pointed at a door to his right.It was blue like all the others, and had a black keypad, like all the others, but stenciled in gold was the English word "SLAYER" right above the keypad."Right through that door, on your left through the second door.It's more like a glass panel that rises up when you turn the knob." He told her.

Immediately she made way for the door indicated, and surprisingly Xander followed her."Uh…Xander?" Goku said, checking through his "files".His codename was Warrior: X.Goku knew why.For any fighters that didn't already have a codename, a title, even just a nickname, they were given the codename Warrior, followed by a letter or number that was chronologically assigned.They eventually were given a proper codename, and so the numeral or whatever was retired.Xander here was given X.Funny how that shortening of his name from Alexander to Xander made that work for him.

Xander turned to look at his trainer._His_ trainer.He liked that thought.Goku then pointed at a door opposite the one Buffy was heading to.It was blue, but as he moved closer to it, he could see the red stencils, "WARRIOR **X**".He turned back to Goku."Warrior X?" he asked, obviously confused.

Even Buffy stopped to look at the dark haired man at that one.Goku looked kind of sheepish for a minute or so, then explained, "Well, rather than get confused with long and often confusing names in each creatures language, we decided that codenames would be assigned that about everyone can pronounce.Don't worry about a language problem though.You've got an appointment in the Clinic in about three hours, and you'll be implanted with translating devices that will allow you to decipher all forms of all communication, no matter the planet or universe."

Xander just stared at him, and then repeated, "Warrior X?"

Goku just shrugged, and decided to tell him later about how the naming system went.Buffy and Xander decided they couldn't wait much longer and went inside their respective rooms."What am I called?" Willow asked, she seemed the most at ease with this situation.Goku looked at her and smiled a friendly grin at her.She smiled back, and Goku wondered if he should tell them he had a girlfriend back home.

"Witch.For now anyway," he answered.

"For now?" she asked, a questioning look replacing the smile as she stepped closer to him.Goku moved closer as well, and then took a seat in one of the recliners, which instantaneously conformed to his body.

"Well, for right now, that's your level of spell casting, as I understand it.I'm more of the 'Chi Master' fighter types, not really into magic and so forth.But since you started using magic, what, how long ago now?Two years, three?"

"Well, uh actually I started about three months ago.Just after the end of school.I got Amy to help me get started, and she showed me all the basics.Then Giles gave me a book of spells and rituals that helped me out big time, and I learned a whole lot.Like, for example, I just did a spell just tonite, or was it last night…maybe it was tonite but more like thirty minutes ago.Anyway, I did this really cool fireball spell that got rid of two vampires for the price of one.I nearly fainted after the spell, though, it's exhausting using that kind of magic when you're not used to it.But I didn't faint and Buffy was there to catch me.She's always doing that, you know, catching me when I'm about to fall, or get attacked by some incubus demon.Not that I've ever been attacked by an incubus demon, cause those are like sex demons that rape every woman they see, and no, I have never met an incubus demon.Obvious because I'm still a…you know…and I plan on staying that way for a long time too, not until I'm married.Though I really don't plan on getting married, at least not too soon.I don't even have a boyfriend and you kind of have to have a boyfriend before you can have a husband, or get married at all really.So what's your story?You said earlier that you liked being away from home.Was that true?I think that you would like your home more than here.At least at home, well, if you're like Buffy, maybe not, but at least some of the time not everybody is trying to kill you and destroy the world or learning how to do it anyway.So why…?"

"Do you want the answer or not?" Goku asked, stopping her before she got a second head of steam.During her babbling, Buffy and Xander had returned and caught the little witch babbling.They smiled, and just listened to her until Goku stopped her.

Willow looked much embarrassed at being caught babbling by the man that was supposed to teach them how to fight."Sorry," she muttered softly.

"Don't apologize.It's kind of cute actually, but if you actually want the answer to any of your questions, you need to know when _not_ to be talking.Anyway, back to the first question, your codename may change if your power as a spell caster grows.And the fact that you've been practicing witchcraft for _three months_ and can already throw fireball spells says a lot about your potential.The highest spell caster title is _Arch-Mage_, and there are only four here that hold that position.You'll actually be tutored under two of them.If you're as powerful as you've shown to be, by the end of this first week, you may be _Sage_, or even _Wicca_.But by the time that you leave the compound, your codenames are stuck, so if you want to be better than Witch, you have to do _very_ good.I think the highest magic codename given currently is _Power Mage_, aside from the four Arch-Mages ofcourse.The only thing more than Power Mage but less than Arch-Mage is to be considered a Master of the primary arts that you've studied.Then you'll be called the general name of that art.For example, which branch of magic are you studying now?Alchemy, Sorcery, black arts?What?"

"Um, I think Amy called it _Wicca_." Willow answered kind of quietly.

Goku's eyes shot up like rockets."_Wicca_?" he asked in a surprised voice.

"Um, yeah, I think so.Yes, I'm studying Wicca.Why?" Willow asked, confused by his response.

"Oh, it's just that, from what I understand of these things, Wicca is the study of all of nature and how to either manipulate it, control it, or be one with it.It also deals strongly in supernatural energies.I don't think that there's been a _Wiccan_ for over a millennia here.The last one trained one of the Mage's and even she isn't considered to be a Master over it.If you want to reach that level Willow, you've got a lot of work to do." Goku informed her.

"Oh.Wow," was the only response the little witch had to give.

"OK, so uh, what's the difference between Wicca, and Wiccan?The only thing different is an 'n' on the end of the word, right?" Xander pointed out.

"The difference, as I understand it, is that _Wicca_ is a level of power where you are equalized with all elements, arts, studies, and powers in the universe, or in our case, multi-verse.Wiccan means that the person has complete mastery over the study of Wicca, as well as more than fair competency in all other mystical arts.Basically, if there would ever be a Wiccan again, he or she would have the complete understanding and knowledge of just about everything taught here.Only the combined might of the four Mages would be able to beat such a person if they actually let loose with their power.Unfortunately, Evil just happens to have such creatures of power in the Tournament.At least this year they will."

At this information, everyone got kinda quiet, trying to absorb and understand this new information.Then Buffy decided to get them back on track."So, uh you were saying something about a tour.How about we get started, unless anybody else has to take care of any "business" before we get going?"She looked at each in turn, and Willow and Giles only shook their head.

Nodding, Goku stood up and directed them to the red spot on the wall."This is a Matter Transfer Conveyer Portal, or MTC for short.The one that we went through is actually on the outside of the building that we're in.But even these smaller short range ones can take you just about anywhere inside the Compound.To activate them, just put your palm on the black panel next to them, wait for it to recognize you, and then state aloud and in a clear voice your destination.Main Gym, Third Floor, New Trainees Tour Section," he said, demonstrating as he spoke.

The red spot on the wall suddenly began to glow, like a really big stoplight.Then, Goku added, "Five.You also have to tell it the number of passengers so that it won't close as soon as the first person goes through.Why don't you guys go first and I'll be right behind you?Just so you can trust me…" he then stuck his arm through the glowing red spot, then pulled it back out, as though he'd just put it through an open doorway.

Buffy just shrugged and stepped through, quickly followed by Willow, Xander, and Giles.Goku was mildly surprised that the others seemed to blindly follow Buffy, no matter what.Good thing that he was the only fighter on his world, from Good or Evil.He doubted that he could've handled the kind of responsibility to look out for a team.But he was only fifty or so years old, even if he still looked twenty.He had a lot of time left.Maybe one day, he'd know what it was like.He hoped one day that he would, but at the same time, feared it.He stepped through.

Once on the other side, Goku found them once again in front of the portal, but at least they were standing this time.They were staring through the two story high clear For-lass.For-lass being short for Force field enhanced Stainless Plastic Glass.Behind the For-lass was the Main Gym, where most of the warriors, fighters, and so forth spent time training, working out, or just hanging out.

Buffy was in shock, and she wasn't the only one.The sight before them was beyond their comprehension.A huge, no make that **_ENORMOUS_** room stood beyond what looked like a clear barrier of some kind.There were what must have been thousands of creatures from all over the cosmos in there.Only about a hundred or so were human, at least it looked that way to the new recruits at first.Then they saw this one man fly straight up and shooting beams and blasts of energy at somebody else on the floor, who almost easily dodged or blocked every one of them.There were also things being done on the other side that boggled the mind and could never be described in the English language.

"Whoa." Buffy said deadpan.Giles repeated her in, "Oh my," and Xander, "Cool!"Everyone half turned to the dark-haired youth, but he was caught up in the sight.

"This," Goku stepping forward, pointing at the view "is the Main Gym.It's where we'll be spending most of your training.But actually this is the Open melee room.We'll be spending it in more of a closed room.Just us and the fists.Right around the corner there, " he pointed to the left, "is the Inventory Shop.There's one on just about every floor of every building in the Compound, except ofcourse for living quarters.It's where we'll get your gear.Come on."

He led the way around the corner, and they found themselves suddenly in front of a hole in the wall sports gear shop.At least, that's what they all took it to be at first.Then they saw the octopus alien creature in the middle of it.It was purple.

"Hey Ralph!" Goku said in greeting as they came up to the store."Where's Barf?I figured it was his duty shift today."

The purple octopus alien thing burbled something back and made slightly agitated movements with its tentacles, but Goku seemed to understand it as though that were a response of some kind.He nodded and said in a sympathetic voice, "Well, I'm sorry to hear that.I hope he gets feeling better.I'm sure that you do to."The last sentence had a touch of sarcasm to it, Buffy could tell.

"Ahem" she coughed, getting her trainer's attention.He lost the impish grin he'd been wearing and straightened a bit more.

"Anyway, we need the usual requisitions.Four model five's; seven model seven's with maybe two or three backup ready.A, well, uh how about a modified number four model five.We'll need only about three of them.And for the last, make it three model six's with T's instead of Tanks.And ofcourse, two make seven's.Oh, and they might need your number in case there's anything that they'll need in the future." Goku listed out.

The creature made some more bubbly noises and its tentacles were suddenly scrambling around, apparently getting everything that Goku had just asked for.When the creature stopped "talking" Goku grinned again and tried unsuccessfully to suppress a chuckle.A moment later, there were about seven wrapped packages and bags on the counter.Goku grabbed them all and thanked the octopus.

"What was that all about?" Buffy asked as she was handed one box and a wrapped clear bag that had something like black clothing inside.They turned from the shop and began to walk back to the MTC.

"Oh darn it!I forgot the make seven's.Hang on, I'll be right back." Goku exclaimed, finished handing out his packages and ran back to the shop.Three seconds later, Goku was back, holding a box that he handed to Giles, and two swords in sheaths.One, with a gold trimmed hilt he handed to Buffy.The other, with a red trimmed hilt he handed to Xander.

"These are ours?" Buffy exclaimed as she took the sword."I didn't think that a street fight allowed weapons."

"Well, this isn't a street fight, as you'll eventually find out.But there are just as _few_ rules.In the tournament, you use whatever you've got, short of a mass destruction weapon.Those are pretty much the only _weapons_ not allowed, but it won't matter since that entails only two things ever known or found.A black hole, and a fission cannon, large scale.Swords, guns, blasters, shields, some even use tanks and starships.It's all fair.Meaning that there is no _unfair_, so don't expect there to be any kind of referee.You either win, you let him or it quit, or you die.It's always that simple."

"Oh." Buffy replied.

She put the other packages under her arms and while walking, tried to get the sword out of the sheath.It wouldn't budge.Goku, seeing what she was trying to do, said, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Why not?" Buffy asked, stopping to ask.

"Because the make seven is made out of the densest material the Compound knows about.The sheath is actually a device that pummels it with anti-graviton particles, making it a whole lot lighter than it would be normally, just so you can carry it.You might be able to get it out, but from what I've seen so far, you wouldn't be able to hold it at all." Goku told her.

Buffy, always one to take the challenge, "Mind if I try out that theory?"

Goku smirked in wry and pitied amusement."Go ahead, I got time."She handed him her other two packages and took the sheath neck by one hand, and the hilt by the other.After ten seconds or so, even Xander could see the strain Buffy was putting into moving the sword.Finally, Goku suggested, "Try holding it horizontal._Might_ make it easier."

She immediately did, and tried again.Slowly, very slowly, the blade began to emerge from the black sheath.It was gray, but a polished gray, and reflected the lighting well.Again, everyone could see the strain in the Slayer's arm, but her face was perfectly calm and almost relaxed.After a minute of pulling, the blade, the four-foot katana was removed from its sheath.

And immediately dropped to the floor with a loud clang.This time all appearances of calm left Buffy as she used both hands on the hilt and much to Goku's surprise, lifted the blade slowly to eye level.After a minute or so of holding it as such, she raised it some more, and took the blade through a familiar kata, practice movement, that Giles had shown her that went well with this type of blade.Her movements were very slow, but precisely controlled, and Goku was nevertheless impressed, despite the simpleness of the moves she was performing.'_I guess Slayer's really are stronger than normal humans._' Goku thought.

"OK, you've made _your_ point and I'm sure that I made _mine_.So if you still want that demonstration before your Clinic appointment, then we'd better get going." He told her.She stopped moving and then almost casually spun the sword on her wrist, picked up the sheath, and replaced the blade.Taking back her packages, she smiled, and Goku knew that her arms were no doubt killing her.

Ninety minutes later, the group was back in the main gym.They had gone back to the quarters to drop off their stuff, and then shown the eating area called the "Movable Mess".Named first and foremost because of it being a giant floating barge that you couldn't transfer to, but had to fly to.Buffy chose to fly with Goku, while the rest took the closest thing to a Taxi this place had.She was still talking about the experience.

After seeing the Mess, Goku showed them the park, the recreation area, and the Primary Building where the Council resides and where they filled out Buffy and groups paperwork.They each signed once to a contract that said the exact same thing that the Powers had told them they were getting into.

The fifty-cent tour over, Goku took them back to the Gym for the demonstration he promised them.Except they weren't behind the For-lass, they were out in the middle of a cleared area with all the other fighters and etc. standing at attention, all staring at the new recruits.If Buffy had felt like the new kid on her first day at Sunnydale high, she now felt like she was stark naked and pimply and geeky on her first day of life.Or at least like she was being watched, and she really didn't like that.

"OK, first demonstration.You have to be strong.And I don't mean super strong, or really strong, I mean _strong_." Goku shouted to them from where he was.They were on the sidelines, with a clear view of the entire arena, but there were several groups of other fighters on either side of them.Buffy and Willow both assumed them to be there in case the demonstration got out of hand.

Suddenly, as Goku finished his announcement, a huge, (remember how big _huge_ is?), black sphere just dropped out of the ceiling right where Goku was standing.It was like a bowling ball about to squish a virus.Except that at the last possible second, Goku put his right hand above his head and _caught it_!As easily as Buffy might catch a basketball, or a Nerf ball really.The humans stared in amazement, and Willow's mouth actually opened in shock.

Then, the amazing thing is, Goku _tossed_ the giant metal ball in the air, and did a mid-air up kick against the tiny portion of it that was against him, and the ball flew, no it _shot_ through the air and into an equally sized blue spot on the distant wall.Goku was standing in his exact same spot by the time that the ball disappeared.

He looked back to the shocked people on the sidelines and shouted the next part of his demonstration."Next, you have to be fast.And not fast enough, not just faster than, but _fast_."And as he finished those words, _every_ fighter in the gym shot a single blast of energy, of one form or another, at the man standing there.Buffy almost cried out a warning, and Willow audibly gasped, but there was no time to do anything as the blasts were fired, they shot with the speed of light towards their trainer, and then…

And then he was just gone, not even there by the moment all the energy blasts connected on that point.There would have been an explosion, had it not been withheld by a force field that appeared in the nick of time.Less than a second after that, Buffy felt a tap on her shoulder.She turned to see what Willow wanted, but saw Goku instead.Her eyes widened, and then bulged more when he seemingly disappeared from in front of her.Her trained Slayer eyes caught a brief flash of what might have been movement in several places around her and the gym in general, but her eyes weren't fast enough to keep up.

After several more seconds of this hide and seek, where Goku would appear before one of them only to disappear less than a second later, he reappeared back out in the middle, where the blast and force field had quit."How'd he do that?" Xander asked aloud.

Goku spoke again, "Then, you have to be _tough_.And tough like nothing you've ever seen.Gentlemen, if you will please demonstrate." Goku indicated two humanoid creatures that stepped out from the crowd.Buffy thought they looked human enough, except one had vivid purple hair and stood close to nine feet tall, while the other was bald, tan, and unnaturally thin.He also had black eyes that had no pupils and blinked sideways.

Goku flew up into the middle of the air once the other two "gentlemen" were in place.Then he just hovered there.The two creatures began to mutter words that the human's didn't immediately recognize, but found that they could understand, because while it was being said in a slightly different language, both were still human languages.

The big purple haired man brought his wrists together and just behind him, and began to shout or chant or call out or whatever in a very loud voice; **"KAAH…MAY…HAAAH…MAYYY…"**

And as he reached this point, a bright white ball of energy formed between his opened palms.Meanwhile, the skinny bald guy had his hands interlocked before him, and he was floating in the lotus position.He was definitely chanting, but as the chant came to a close and the other man got to the MAYYY point, he shouted in a loud crystal clear voice a command of some kind, oh yeah, and he was glowing red:

**"DHALSIM'S YOGA SPIRIT ATTACK!!!"**

And at the exact same time, the purple haired man brought his hands forward, as well as the glowing white ball of power, and said the final word of his attack:

**"_HAH!!!!_"**

Then the most amazing thing yet happened.The ball of energy shot out in a beam of white energy, and from the bald guy, a giant dragon shaped form of fire energy shot out from him and both headed for Goku, who only hovered in the air, not indicating for a second that he was about to move.In fact if anything he appeared amused.

It almost seemed to go in slow motion at one point, for Buffy anyway.Unconsciously, her hand slipped into Willow's, and at the same time Xander's too found the fiery haired girl's other hand.And then the inevitable happened; the two energy attacks collided dead center on Goku.Buffy was sure that he hadn't moved away or anything.As the two energies hit their target, there was an explosion of light, and almost everyone there had to cover their eyes, or at the least blink.Then the light really did turn into an explosion, so loud that Buffy thought she was deaf if not for the ringing in her ears.As they continued to watch, the explosion lent way to a billowing cloud of smoke.And it was fast moving to cover everything.

Buffy noticed Willow beside her, she was chanting some Latin spell or something.'This is not the time for spell casting Willow,' Buffy thought._Yes it is_ came an almost immediate response.Buffy blinked and tried to figure out what had just happened.But she did not have time as she noticed the smoke cloud less than twenty feet away.Buffy had been caught in a dust storm once when she was a kid, she knew how dangerous and unpleasant they could be.She attempted to brace herself, and covered her eyes once again.Suddenly Willow's chanting reached a shouting climax and Buffy swore there was another flash of light.

The next thing anybody knew, the smoke cloud covered every inch of the floor of the Main Gym.Except for one area where the smoke was going in every direction to avoid it.The spot that Willow, Buffy, Xander, and Giles stood in.Slowly, over the next minute or so, the smoke slowly dissipated, and revealed almost everybody covered with a small covering of dust.Almost everybody except for the new recruits who were surrounded by a mystical barrier.

When Buffy looked up, she didn't see smoke, she didn't feel dust in her eyes or lungs.Rather she saw the smoke stop, just stop less than ten feet from them, and then stay that distance away from them on all sides."Willow?" Buffy asked.When her friend didn't answer, Buffy turned to her, concerned.What she saw concerned her even more.Willow was standing straighter than an ironing board, and her eyes were glowing slightly.Not any specific color, but they were definitely glowing.

"Willow?" Buffy asked again.The little witch didn't respond until the smoke had mostly dissipated.Then, it was only to take a deep breath.Buffy noticed that Giles had both of his hands on Willow's shoulders.

"Giles, what are you doing?" she asked, slightly miffed.

Giles looked confused for a moment, then saw where his hands were and after a moment to think, stuttered out a response."Well…uh, that is, I believe that Willow created this barrier to protect us from the smoke cloud, and uh, she might not have been powerful enough alone, so she, well, I believe she focused our power into her spell as well."

Buffy looked down at her hand and noticed as if for the first time that it was holding Willow's, and on the other side, she could see Xander also holding Willow's hand."OK, I guess that's a good way of looking at it.Xander…what are you looking at?" Buffy asked when she saw Xander just staring straight ahead, with his mouth open in shock.Xander, in response, only pointed at whatever he was looking at.

Buffy looked where he pointed and her own mouth dropped down.The next second, Willow let out a gasp, and her eyes stopped glowing and the barrier disappeared.Surprisingly, at least to her, she didn't faint, or even feel like fainting.Then she noticed the others holding her hands and looking into the distance, in shock.

Willow immediately went to panic mode.Did her spell cause this?Did she do this?How could she reverse it?What would she do now?What were they looking at?All these questions and more came to her mind, and when the last one was asked, Willow looked herself, and she joined them in a state of shock.

What they saw was Goku, still floating exactly where he had been and the only indication that he had been hit by the two energy blasts at all was he had three more strands of hair over his forehead.The transition from panic mode to babble mode was always easy for Willow, especially now.

"How…how did…he…they…the two…big explosion…they hit…he…I…shield…but he…how…did he…no, I…I saw him get hit, I saw him get hit.He did not dodge or disappear or anything, he got hit!Him getting hit is what I saw!How?How did he do that?Buffy?" Willow babbled.

"I'm right there with ya Red," responded the blonde Slayer.

After a moment or two, Goku "disappeared" again and reappeared right in front of Willow.They finally let go of their hands and Giles removed his.Willow was staring wide eyed up at the unscathed man, and he was glaring intensely at her.Enough so that Buffy decided that she didn't like it.

"How did you do that?Those blasts were massive, almost nothing could've survived that!" Buffy asked in an attempt to get him off Willow's case.

"I told you, tough." Goku responded, not taking his eyes from Willow."Now you tell me something, why did Willow set up a mystical barrier?I figured even Xander could've handled something as small as dust."

Buffy would've answered to that, but Willow beat her to it."Hey!Dust clouds can be pretty dangerous you know, and besides, what if we were blindsided or something.Just because we're supposed to be tough, fast, and strong by the time we leave doesn't mean that we are right now!So what if I did set up a barrier, it practically took all I had to do it anyway!And it worked, and I already did it and you can't do anything about that, can you?"

Goku smiled.If Willow didn't know any better, she'd have thought it was a proud smile.Then Goku spoke."Well, no I can't do anything about that now.All I can say is that I'm impressed.And there is one more thing that I have to show you.Yes, you need to be strong, and fast, and tough by the time you leave, but you also need one more thing, and it might be a good idea to get that before you even come here."

"What's that?" Buffy asked.

Goku, instead of answering, disappeared and immediately reappeared in the middle of the floor."Power," he stated loud enough for them to hear.Then he went into a modified horse stance, his legs spaced evenly beneath him and his arms drawn back by his sides.Then he began to yell.

"Hhheeeeeeeyyaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!" the sound reverberated throughout the building.But that wasn't the impressive thing.The impressive thing, Buffy noticed first, followed quickly by Willow, Giles, and Xander was the last to even catch a clue about sensing it.As soon, if not sooner than the dark haired man had started shouting, Buffy's stomach clenched.She vaguely recalled a long forgotten lecture by her first Watcher.The Slayer has the ability to sense and find vampires naturally.It reacts to their un-naturalness, their inhumanity.To her, that first time it was just cramps.Then she was able to get past the pain and able to focus it into a sixth sense sort of.More like an early warning of anything coming up where she couldn't see it, vampire or not.

She suddenly felt the cramps again.But it wasn't responding to vampires or anything like that.It was responding to Goku, and whatever he was doing.As she focused, she realized that she could get past the pain with this as well, and she realized something else as well.Goku was getting stronger, more powerful, and she knew it in her very marrow.

Willow could also detect Goku's growing strength, though she didn't feel it as a part of her anatomy or as anything Buffy felt it like.Rather she sensed it through her magical abilities and the effects of what he was doing on the surrounding environment.As they all watched, the air around Goku took on a blurry effect, like heat waves from the road, only much, much more intense and far closer.

Giles sensed Goku's growing strength much the way Willow had, through the magical talents he had acquired from his rebel days in college.Xander was the last to sense anything, and for him, it was like a presence, an impenetrable shadow on his mind that continuously grew bigger and darker.Whatever it was, it scared him.

And then the most truly amazing thing happened.Goku transformed.There was a flash of golden light, and when the Slayerettes looked again, Goku was standing there surrounded by a golden glow.But he was different.His hair was golden blond, even more than Buffy's right after she came out of the bathroom.And if they could look closely enough, they would see that his black brown eyes were now a vivid blue sea green.His hair, where it had been wild before, now it was all going straight up, except for the two or three bangs left there on his forehead.Surrounded by the golden light, he looked awesome.

"Holy schnikes!" Xander exclaimed.Everyone was staring at the amazing sight in the middle of the arena.And more than half of them could feel the strength and "_power_" of the entity that was Goku.

"Giles, what the hell just happened here?" Buffy asked, turning to Giles for an answer as she always did.

Giles stared amazedly at the golden man that had guided them for the past two hours or so.He too felt the strength and sheer level of power that he exuded, and possibly held, though Giles severely doubted that he could ever sense this man's true power.After a full two minutes of silence, Giles answered Buffy's question."I have no idea Buffy.I have no idea."

After maybe five minutes of standing there, powering up, Goku held his power level steady and "flashed", or ran faster than sight, over to his new trainees.To everyone else, he merely stopped glowing but did not turn back to the way he had been.And everyone could _feel_ how powerful he was.

When Goku reappeared before them, even Buffy had to jump.Willow and Xander screamed, while Giles let his breathing accelerate enough that his heart tried to beat its way out of his chest."What?Did I scare you?" Goku asked in a teasing tone.

"What the…what the hell happened?What happened to you?_Who are you!??_" Buffy got out all in a rush.Again, she had subconsciously put herself between the "threat" and her allies.

"Oh, nothing much.I just powered up and transformed into a **_Super Saiyan_**." Goku answered back as though it were casual as knocking on someone's door before coming in.

"OK, back up, what the hell is a _Super Saiyan_?" Buffy accused.

Goku smiled that same pitying smile he seemed to like giving her, and dodged the question with, "I'll explain everything.I promise, and I always keep my promises.But for now, we might as well show you the Arboretum, it's a nice place to visit and calm down after a rough day.Even you'll like it Buffy."

Before Buffy could respond to the obvious attack on her attitude, she stopped.She was sensing something far more familiar to her, even this close to the star fire that was Goku.It was close, otherwise she never would have felt it.Focusing down, she barely managed to pinpoint the location and the source._Vampire_.

Quickly double-checking, without letting it be overtly obvious that she was checking, Buffy felt for the back up stakes she kept in her jacket and pants leg.Turning so that it would look as though she were walking away in a huff from Goku, she was actually, maneuvering the stake in her jacket into her right hand and turning her body so that she faced the vampire that was less than five feet from Xander.

Goku found it odd that the girl who was so full of attitude and outright rebellious actions towards authority, wouldn't respond to the obvious jibe.That's when he noticed her reaching out with her senses.He found it odd that she already had an adaptation of the ability to sense other powers.She seemed to be searching the crowds, and when she found it, a pale, but big looking human barely five feet from Xander's back.Buffy's whole demeanor changed.He could even feel a slight flare of her own power. Then she turned her back on him, as though too angry for words, but he caught that she turned towards the man who was slowly inching closer to Xander.She also reached for something in her jacket, he was sure of it.The next things that happened even he didn't expect.

Buffy, just before walking her perfected, "angry, fuming, storming off" routine, caught Giles' eyes and gave him a meaningful look that not many could've misunderstood.His returning nod was barely a twitch of his chin and he also started scanning the crowds.Then, taking four very quick steps that took her very close to Xander, she casually noticed that the vampire had slowly moved closer to Xander, before she took a final step that ended with her leg in his gut.

Xander, as he had planned on doing since he caught Buffy and Giles exchanging looks, dived and ducked away from Buffy as soon as she passed him.Before anybody could react further, Buffy kicked the big pale guy twice more, and then performing a perfect leg sweep.Before he could even get up, she pulled him up by the scruff of his collar, and threw him across the clearing in the crowd over next to Giles, who picked the vampire up himself and punched him, and then broke its neck.Keeping it down for a few moments longer anyway.

"Hey!What the heck are you guys doing?" Goku shouted.He tried to step up to Buffy but was shoved away by a surprisingly strong human that soon attacked Buffy, who was more than ready for it.

She began blocking and punching at an almost casual pace for her.She was almost amazed that vampires could ever be this easy.Then a punch caught her off-guard for a moment and she flew back nearly ten feet.Unfortunately, she was caught…by another vampire.He was already "vamped out", the term that Buffy used to describe the yellow eyes, rigid forehead, and sharp fangs that represented the demon half of the vampire.He smiled at her, not a pleasant smile, if anything about these guys was ever pleasant, and thought about lunging for a bite, but didn't do much after that as her leg suddenly knocked his head down a vertebrae on his dead spine.

Twisting away from the demon that had caught her, Buffy kept up her momentum and performed an arching roundhouse the knocked the vampire to the ground.Three vamps so far, she counted to herself.She noticed that Willow was staying as close as the little wicca could stand next to Goku, and Xander was trying to help Giles with the vampire that had thrown her.Deciding to end this before it got any more dangerous, Buffy knelt to the vampire she had just knocked down and finally revealing the stake in her hand, drove the wooden object through the demon's heart, effectively turning it to dust in the next five seconds.

Finished with that one, she ran to the one that Giles had broken the neck of and staked it through the back as it was staggering to its feet.Running past it, she took out her other stake and jumping over the battling three, tossed it to Xander, who easily caught it, but was almost just as easily knocked away in the next second.Giles also was cast aside, leaving Buffy to fend herself from the massive vampire.

Goku tried once more to intervene, "Hey!Stop it!Willow, what is going on?"The redheaded witch beside him merely shrugged and answered as casually as he had spoken to them, "Vampires," as though that one word answered all his questions.Actually, it did.

"Oh," he commented as he watched Buffy begin a complex series of rapid punches and kicks, which the large vampire had little trouble keeping up with it seemed.After maybe a minute more of this, with everyone watching the Slayer work, deciding that with the way she was going that if anybody interfered, they'd just get knocked flat on their butts.Then, Goku felt Buffy's power flare for just a moment or two, and suddenly the fight seemed to be going in her favor as she started pummeling through the undead creature's defenses faster than it could raise them.Finally, Buffy kicked the vampire to the ground and threw, with stunning precision and accuracy, the stake in her hand into the creature's heart, turning it to dust in the next second.

The group, Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles, regathered next to each other and congratulate on the victory.At least that's how it started out.

"Way to go Buff!" Xander exclaimed."That was one tough vamp, and I thought he nearly had you there.Nice jump by the way."

"Thanks," she responded, "but compared to Spike, that guy was easy.Tell you what really bugs me though, is how three vampires got _here_ and knew exactly where we were, and for that matter, why would they attack us?Seeing what Goku just did, and the fact that we're supposed to be able to do that, you'd think that they'd start by turning some of the other fighters here.It doesn't make much sense."

The others were obviously just as troubled as she was over this, until Goku stepped in, still a _Super Saiyan_."Oh, don't worry too much about that.It was to be expected, and I figured if I'd warned you, then you might not have been as good as you were." He was saying.

"What are you talking about gold boy?" Xander quipped.

Goku gave him a humoring grin and continued, "I'm talking about the fact that the gym is more than just a gym.It's a training hall.Sometimes training means fighting enemies. So, using somewhat advanced technology, the main computer created synthoid manifestations of vampires.And had them attack you to test your fighting prowess."

"You mean those vamps were fake?!!" Xander shouted as they neared the MTC for the Main Gym floor.Goku only nodded.

"Well, fake enough.They were real in the sense that they could actually kill you if you don't defend yourself, but no, they were not case in point _real_ vampires.I might've come in and helped, but you looked like you were on a roll Buffy," Goku remarked as he pointed his right hand back to where they had come from, and suddenly an intense beam of yellow energy shot from his hand to a fourth vampire that the gym seemed to have made another of to keep them from leaving.It barely had time to register the attack before it was swallowed in the intense light and let loose an unearthly scream as it was vaporized on the spot.

Shrugging, Goku set the coordinates for the MTC and stepped through, the others staring in amazement at all they had just witnessed.Then one by one, Buffy first, they stepped through, following the Super Saiyan.

After another hour, in which the golden haired Super Saiyan showed them not only the arboretum, but took them to several viewing points throughout the complex where they had the possibility of actually seeing a large number of the buildings and structures created inside this pocket universe.He also took them to "street level", a portion of the compound that was a maze of twists, turns, and overall garbage around the bases and foundations of most of these buildings.A good portion of the higher and "intenser" training sessions would be conducted out here.With them anyway.

Then finally, Goku, still Super Saiyan, announced that it was time for their Clinic appointment.It was finally getting to Buffy, who was the most disturbed by the fighter's raging power.So while they were still some minutes away from the MTC, she voiced her annoyance.

"Goku, I don't suppose that you've noticed that you are still a, what did you call it?A _Super Saiyan_?And I don't know about the others, but I can _sense_ whatever it is, and it's starting to give me serious cramps, so unless you want to see me in the state "my time of the month" puts me in, then I would kindly suggest that you change back or whatever it is that you do, OK?" she sarcastically asked of him.

Goku only shrugged, and without a word, his hair changed back to black and fell back to its familiar wild routine, and his eyes back to basic black.Buffy visibly relaxed after this and everyone guessed as to how much it was really bothering her when she mumbled a serious, "Thanks," to him.

Willow was concerned about what Buffy had said though."Buffy, what do you mean, you could 'sense' him?" she asked using her concerned friend voice.

Buffy just shrugged and tried to explain it as best she could to her friends and trainer."Well, you know that the Slayer can sense vampires, right?"Giles and Willow nodded, while Xander looked skeptically at her.

"You're kidding right?" he asked, totally not believing.Buffy just shook her head and continued.

"Well, the first time that I felt a vampire, when my first watcher sent me down a dark alley, alone with nothing but a stake, I began to feel really bad cramps.After the vamp was dusted, my watcher explained that it was an ability to track and sense vampires.After a long time, having lived in Sunnydale where vamps are practically everywhere, I began to kind of get used to the cramps, and could actually turn it into a sort of vampire radar.Anyway, during the demonstration, when Goku was doing whatever he was doing to the air, it was so strong that it brought the cramps back." She finished.

"Oh," Willow and Xander synced.

"Um, Buff, I, uh, I, you know, I kinda felt something too," Willow stutteringly admitted.

"What do you mean Will?" Buffy asked, curious despite herself.

"I…I don't know exactly what he, um, you were doing Goku, but I…I don't know.I could _feel_ the energy you were raising, and the effect that it was having on the environment around you, and us.And when you…you transformed, it…it, it, it was like, like…"Xander hit Willow solidly on the back, "like your power nearly quadrupled after that.I don't get it.What exactly did you do?" she asked begging to know.After a moment, she mouthed a 'thanks' to her lifelong friend.

Goku was silent for a time, but he did eventually answer."Well, Willow, actually, I'd like to think that my power, as you put it, more than quadrupled.I'd like to think that it exponentially increased as I willed it." He said cryptically.

"How did you do that?" Buffy asked instantly.

Goku gave her a curious look before continuing on walking.He answered some moments later."I'll tell you what, I'll explain the finer mechanics of what I did, if you tell me how you did it."

"What?!I didn't do anything like that!I don't glow, and I don't know how to transform into this…this _Super Saiyan_!!" Buffy exclaimed angrily.

"I wasn't talking about transforming," Goku explained gently."I was talking about, when you were about to take out that vampire sim back in the gym.You raised your own power level by a marginal, but significant amount."

"Oh," Buffy muttered, ashamed.Then, realizing what her trainer had said, she did a double take and asked, amazed, "I did?"Goku smiled and nodded.

Buffy thought for a moment about the fight barely an hour ago, how when she had sensed the vampire, all of her senses suddenly became focused on finding it, and every single one of her muscles tensed, just slightly, preparing for the adrenaline rush needed for fighting the undead creatures that she was called to destroy.It was strange, what she had felt then felt nothing like what Goku had done, but then, she wasn't Goku, so she couldn't know what it had felt like for him.Well, now was as good as anytime to find out.

"I'm not sure.I can't really imagine how I felt then could be anything similar to what you did, but…" Buffy tried to explain.

"Well, that may be because of the fact that I did it on a far larger scale.Like I said, you only raised it a marginal amount, but enough for me, who is highly trained to sense such fluctuations in an entity's power, even at extremely low levels, to notice it.Why don't you tell me how it is that you first sensed the vampire?" Goku asked of her, believing that it was never too early to start some training.

Buffy thought about her answer for a moment before replying."Well, I'm a Slayer, and according to my first Watcher, and Giles," she paused, smiling as mentioned Watcher blushes with the recognition, "say that the Slayer is supposed to be able to sense the vampires.I've been working on it ever since I came back from summer vacation.I got it down to where I can tell if a vampire is nearby if it's less than ten feet away, and on occasion, I can tell if how many there are, and once I was even able to tell a different type of demon from the hoard of vamps it was with." Buffy boasted proudly.Goku nodded in understanding, or at least he seemed to.

"How old are you Buffy?" he asked suddenly.

Surprised at the question, she was flustered for a moment before answering, "Sixteen, why?"She did not receive an immediate response.Goku stared at her for a few moments, continuing to walk.Then he nodded, as though some thought had made an understanding sense.He turned to Giles, "Watcher, do you think you might be able to explain to me, _exactly_ how Buffy's "6th sense" works?"

Buffy was annoyed by the use of Giles' title rather than his name."Hey!His name is Giles!And I don't appreciate it when people insult my friends, including my Watcher, by ordering them around!" she accused.

Goku then did an amazing thing.He blushed.And grinned sheepishly at Buffy and the flustered Watcher.Then ducking his head in embarrassment, he said to them, "Sorry Giles.And Buffy, I…I, uh, I kind of forgot his name.So when I forget people's names, I use their codenames.Everyone's has already been assigned, as you know.I'm sorry Giles, but, you've just kind of been there, but I'm sure we'll be good friends, at least good enough for me to learn your name." He joked, smiling, hoping that they would catch on.Nobody laughed.

Giles did smile, in sympathetic understanding.Then he returned to the Saiyan's question."Um, well, actually, I am not one hundred percent sure about all of Buffy's abilities.There is ofcourse the enhanced strength, as well as a heightened immune and healing system.She can also learn to use almost any weapon instantly, provided she ofcourse has some practice swings," the Watcher gave her a chiding parental look.She just returned it with a childish immature look, sticking her tongue out at him.

Continuing, "She also has the ability to resist most forms of vampire mesmerism.Though in most cases it is indeed a myth, provided the vampire is old enough, like the Master, then they do indeed have a form of mesmerism."

"That's funny, cause aside from the Master, I don't remember fighting any vampires with 'mesmerism' powers," Buffy interrupted.

Giles gave her a look, which made the younger girl blush at her outburst, which in turn caused Goku to smile at it.Giles continued, answering Buffy as well, "Spike, a recent vampire that had come to Sunnydale, who by the way has killed two Slayers already, has mesmerism powers, as well as his mate, Drusilla, and Angel once confided in me that he too has discovered that he has hypnotic abilities.He also said that Buffy was completely immune to them."

They all turned to Buffy, expecting her reaction, she just shrugged her shoulders, but knowing exactly the time that Giles was speaking of.Taking that as some form of answer, Giles finally got to the point of Goku's question."As for Buffy's "6th sense" as you put it, her ability to sense vampires and demons, there is little more known about it, other than what the Slayer describes to her Watcher, and that it is very accurate when fully tested."

"Tested?" Goku asked.

Giles, distracted by something, "Hmm?Oh, well, the counsel, the Watcher's counsel, has every so often tried to study this phenomenon of the Slayer's powers.As I understand it, they would blind fold the Slayer and place her in either a very crowded and noisy room, or in a sound proof chamber.They would then take captured and weakened vampires and various other demons to within range of what the Slayer said she could sense.It was a very long time ago, but I believe the chronicle said that the most any Slayer was able to sense accurately was between 100 and 90 meters away.But then, the counsel only tested with vampires in those stages."Giles finished and turned to the man that was their trainer.

The taller man had a thoughtful look on his face as he considered what Giles had told him.He stopped, the others stopped around him, wondering what he could possibly be thinking.Then he told them.

"Buffy, do you remember what _I_ felt like when I was powering up back in the gym?" he asked her, his face quite serious.

Buffy nodded, remembering."I don't think I'll ever be able to forget it," she answered solemnly.Goku nodded and told them, "Stay here.I want to try something.I'm going to go behind one of these buildings and transform to Super Saiyan, powering up exactly as I did in the gym.I want you all to stay here, and if you sense me Buffy, then point out which building, and try and focus on where exactly I am.And you two," he said pointing at Willow and Giles, "no helping her.I know that both of you have some magical talent, and that no doubt helped you to sense me before, but this is testing Buffy's powers, not yours.We'll work on your own sensing abilities later, but for now, we're working with Buffy.OK?"The two nodded.

Nodding himself, Goku chose a direction, and in a flash he was in the air and disappeared behind on of the corners.Several seconds later, Buffy, Willow, and to a smaller degree, Giles felt something.It was similar to what they had felt and seen in the gym, but because they couldn't see the source, their senses didn't quite fully detect it.

But Buffy's did.For whatever reason, the second that Goku started to "power up" as he had put it, she felt her cramps start up again.As she focused herself past the pain, only rubbing her stomach lightly as any indication, she focused down on what her "6th sense" was telling her about what she was feeling.It was huge, almost identical to before, and as she continued to focus, and the pain lessened, she began to think of this type of "blip" on her radar as _Goku_. Closing her eyes in concentration, Buffy bit down the rest of the pain and forced herself to identify the "blip's" location.

She turned slightly in the direction and 'felt' which building, what corner, and to a much smaller degree, how much power the blip had.Opening her eyes, she turned her head to the building that she sensed Goku behind, he was hiding on the corner exactly opposite from the corner facing them.She smiled.

Willow suddenly exclaimed."Ooh!I found him, he's there!" she said pointing excitedly at the building that Buffy had correctly identified that her trainer was hiding behind.Suddenly, the blip practically disappeared off her radar.She wondered what happened, until she realized that he had just returned to normal.No longer powered up.

She wondered if she could sense him when he was like this.Closing her eyes again, she focused and searched for anything similar to what 'felt' like that big blip that was on her screen just moments ago.A second of concentrating, she suddenly found him.He was moving like lightning, practically straight at them, but not without bouncing off a few buildings too.Focusing all her other senses, opening her eyes, with her new sense, her head jumping around like at a ping pong tournament, she could barely make out movement wherever she looked, and she knew that she heard whistling, or some kind of wind sound as well.

She kept this up, beginning to get a serious headache, when Goku finally reappeared in front of them."Well?" he asked dead serious.Willow answered first, pointing at the building, "That one!" she exclaimed, very excited.Until Goku gave her an identical look to the one Giles had given Buffy before.

Buffy nodded and pointed at the same building."That one alright.On the corner opposite us.I could also, when I concentrated, follow some of your movements after you powered down." She answered like the prize pupil, which she felt like since she was now in a school all about fighting.

Goku smiled and nodded in approval.Willow looked confused."Actually, I thought you were inside the building," she commented.

Goku shrugged."Buffy's right, I was on the corner opposite.Close to the wall, but definitely outside, sorry Willow."Willow only nodded, and accepted that she would have to train _really_ hard if she was supposed to _help_ Buffy in this fighting tournament thing.She made a promise then and there to herself that she would work herself tired and beyond to be good enough for Buffy.It would be much later until she came to realize the double meaning of that promise, for both her life, and Buffy's.

"OK, that time, I was the exact distance that I was away from you in the gym.This time, I want you to try and guess direction, position, and _distance_," Goku told Buffy.She nodded, but asked a quick question."How far away were you this time?" she asked."20 meters" he replied.Nodding, she went back to her standing position and closed her eyes, concentrating on Goku the entire way as he flashed from point to point through the buildings.

At some point she lost him entirely and couldn't find him until he started powering up again.Once he was at what she called "Super Saiyan" level, she tried to calculate in her mind how far away he was.Keeping in mind that the first two times were 20 meters away, she tried simple addition, and moved on to multiplication.After maybe a minute, she was amazed at her guess; _100 meters!_!!As she continued to concentrate, she realized that she could sense many more things about Goku that she initially could.Must be the practice she mused.

But before she could really identify all of the new things she had begun to sense, he dropped his power level all of a sudden and began to return to them, along a very jagged route.She tried following him again, yet all of a sudden, it was like she just lost him.It wasn't until he felt like ten feet away that she could sense him again.

Opening her eyes, she saw him flash back in front of them, and look at her expectantly.She pointed to an area to the right and back of where they were currently standing, and said, "There, between two buildings it felt like, like in an alley, or behind some really big shade.And it felt, at least I added it up in my head, like it was about 100 meters or so away.That right?"

Goku raised an eyebrow, clearly impressed."That's right.If you want to get exact, then 102.3 meters.But that's very good Buffy."Looking at his Global, he quickly began walking again in the direction of the MTC."We'd better get going.We're going to be pushing how "on time" we are as it is."

The others began to jog, keeping up with the Saiyan as he strode quickly to get them to their appointment on time.Buffy decided to ask the question she had now, thinking that they might get too busy if she waited till later to ask.

"Goku, I do have a question," she informed him.

"What's that?" he asked, absently.

"The last time just now, when you were going out to power up, and even as you came back, I tried to track you, as, you know, as you are.But I lost you both times.Do you think that this ability to sense might be screwing up somehow?I mean, I know that I only just discovered what it can really do, but if it's blitzing now, then what's to say that it won't when I develop it some more?" she voiced her concerns.

Goku smiled, and even chuckled a little as he broke into a slight run himself, still allowing the others to keep up."Heh, actually Buffy, there was absolutely nothing wrong with your senses.I was actually hiding my power level, as I went from my hiding place to the group.Just to see how well you might be able to focus.I'll ask for details later, but right now," he said as they came up to the black MTC, "you've got a doctor's appointment, and believe you me, they do not like to be kept waiting."

He entered the coordinates and then a picture of a very nice waiting room appeared in the black portal.Buffy entered first quickly followed by the other three.Goku waited until the portal closed, and then reopened it to a different place before stepping through himself.He appeared in the control room/observation room adjacent to where his new charges would be…operated on.Sadly, it was the only way to install the translating device to the brain, but all the same, Goku didn't entirely trust it, as he knew that there might be a protest from Buffy and her team.Proving him right, a slight explosion of voices could be heard through the supposed soundproof walls of the control room.

Buffy was somewhat surprised at the normalcy of the room she had just entered.She heard, as well as sensed the others enter behind her.Having just learned a cool, and potentially valuable new trick, Buffy wanted to use it as much as possible, first to get used to it, and second to hone it so that she could use it to its maximum potential.

Normally she wasn't like this, but after everything she had seen in the past few hours, not to mention all the day dreams she'd been having about the upcoming fights, and her laser sharp memory of what Goku's palm-pilot had told of her schedule, every advantage she had, the better off she was.

As she looked around the waiting room, she was afraid to sit down, remembering when Goku had come in at the exact moment that she had laid on the couch earlier.'_Speaking of Goku…_' she thought as she looked behind them at the closed MTC, '…_where is he?_'

"Hey, you guys," Buffy said breaking everyone out of their own thoughts, "anybody see if Goku came in behind us?He's not here."

Almost immediately as she said that, a hydraulic door that they had not noticed yet suddenly _whooshed_ open and two very tall and tough looking robots walked in.They stood about three feet above Xander, who was the tallest of the group at six feet.They were humanoid enough in the appearance of having a torso, two arms, two legs, and a head, but the arms were metal pipe thin, the legs were double jointed and backwards like a cats, and the head was like Robocop's head, minus the human mouth and the fact that a red bar of light occasionally flickered across the visor.The torso was just a simple tube that expanded out at the arms and legs to connect to.As for hands, well, they just seemed to be tentacles that shot out of the thin metal pipe arms.

So when the mentioned appendages suddenly shot out and wrapped themselves around Xander and Giles' waists, lifting them in the air, all hell broke loose as expected."Aaaahhhhh!" both men screamed as they suddenly found themselves held immobile by something unknown."Giles!Xander!" Buffy and Willow screamed together.

Buffy immediately raced forward and grabbed the tentacle thing around Xander and pulled with all her strength in an attempt to remove it."GOKU!!!HELP!!" She screamed at the same time, the metal ropes completely unmoving.Willow, meanwhile was trying another tactic against the robots, magic.

Finally, Buffy made some headway, and the tightening metal tubes wrapped twice around her friend were torn apart at the seams in her bare hands.She wasn't exactly surprised at this since it had taken everything that she had, and it looked like the only thing holding the coils together were the wires that worked them on the inside.Xander fell to the ground and he struggled to regain his breathing after the thing had nearly squeezed his lungs out of his chest.

Buffy, not wanting to chance that this thing would grow new tentacles, or have some other way to come after Xander or herself, she solidly kicked the thing in it's torso and faster than it could react, followed up with a sweep the knocked it back and down for a little bit.Wanting to end it so that she could go and help Giles and the others, Buffy struck out at what she hoped was a vital part of the robot, the head.

Jumping up, Buffy spin-drop kicked the visor with such force that it shattered and crumbled at the impact and immediately the thing stopped moving.Watching for a brief moment to ensure the robot would not be getting back up, she got up and turned to help her friends, only to see Willow finishing the spell she was casting, which seemed to turn the offending machine into a large pile of green Jell-O.Much to the chagrin of the older watcher.

"Nice goin' Will," Buffy commented with a laugh.

The redheaded witch just blushed and smiled sheepishly, choosing to try and help Giles out of the mess she made rather than laugh about it.Xander on the other hand…"You know G-man, I probably should have noticed this before, but _green_ is a _very_ nice color on you!Maybe you should start wearing that instead of tweed!"

The elder watcher just stood and glared at the younger warrior, albeit covered in a green slimy Jell-O substance."Xander, I do not know how many times I must tell you this.I _detest_ it when you call me…"G-man" and I would be much appreciative if you would forever refrain from doing so again.Now-now help me out-out of this-this-this…"

"Jell-O." Willow provided.Giles just glared at her, and together the two teens helped the green covered man to stand without slipping.Buffy just laughed hysterically at the whole scene.

"I notice that you aren't helping any," Giles reprimanded.

Buffy just shrugged, still grinning, and then lamely retorted, "Not my mess."Buffy turned away before her three team members turned devastating life-threatening glares at her back.After a minute to get more or less comfortable again, Buffy turned back to the others, all business.

"I don't get this place.First thing when we get here is end up in a _very_ comfortable room that makes it look like we'd be there for a while, two seconds after we do, they send in the toughest fighter I've ever _heard_ about, let alone _seen_, who insults us and makes us jog like two whole miles before beating me up and throwing us, rather roughly through a portal of unknown origins.Then a couple hours later we're fighting vampires again, and told that we have to practically kill ourselves to get strong enough to even survive in this tournament.Now, at our _Doctor's appointment_ no less, we're attacked again, this time by robots.Geez, does the training ever stop?!!" Buffy whined/outlined.

"Wait-wait-wait-wait a second guys!" Willow said suddenly.Everyone turned their attention her."What if-what if-what-what-what…""Will, do you need another slap?" Xander interrupted.Willow shook herself and finished her thought, "What if those…things were-were…were our…nurses?"

Everyone stared in shock at the revelation presented to them.They all looked down at their assailants, and realized that despite the surprise, strength, and capabilities of them, they weren't exactly hard to beat.Meaning that they weren't there to test the team's strength or give them a workout.

Buffy summed it up best in, "Uh oh."Two seconds before the same hydraulic door opened, and this time a dozen of the robots filed out before surrounding the group."Ditto," Xander muttered before he, Giles, Buffy, and most importantly Willow were literally paralyzed with over two dozen tentacles covering each limb of their body.

"GOOOOKKUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!" Buffy screamed at the top of her lungs, which was quickly echoed by Willow and Xander, Giles choosing to grunt in his struggles.After several minutes of struggles and screams, the robots or whatever they are spared a tentacle each to wrap over each screaming teenager's mouth, before finally moving them, wrapped and all, through the hydraulic door and into a too dark room to see anything.Then before they were even aware of it, they were unconscious.

Seven Hours later 

Buffy slowly became aware of her surroundings.An unfamiliar ceiling, a comfortable, but unknown bed, and walls that looked familiar, but she did not immediately recognize.She moaned quietly, the soft sound echoing in the egg like room.Slowly, taking ginger care so as not to be dizzy, the young Slayer sat up and got a better look at a room that she had barely glanced at before.Looking to the right of the bed, she saw the glass panel with the shower faucet knob to the left of it that she had gone through earlier just after she had arrived actually.

Shaking her head she actually took in the time to study her room for the next six weeks.The bed that she was currently lying on was pretty much a standard rectangular bed, except that it was maybe one size larger than 'King size'.The sheets, which were the only things, aside from surprisingly sturdy pillows, on the bed, were a dark forest green color, her favorite she noted.Currently the sheets were tucked into the bed, she seemed to have been placed on top of them and not tucked in for anything.

The room itself was almost a miniature model of the 'living room'.It was domed, sort of, but rather than go high above her head at a point, the ceiling, at a certain point along the wall, lost the sharp slope it had been going at and went into a nice curve along so that everything looked smooth, but it wasn't like living in an egg.She also noted that the room lacked any outstanding decoration, save a desk on the right of the bed, a dresser along the wall to the left of the bed, and the glass panel door to the bathroom.The room, for the most part was a soft gray color, while the carpeted color was a grayish brownie color.The furniture, desk and dresser, matched the walls, causing the bed, glass panel, and the door to the 'living room' to be vividly noticeable.The bed more so than the others.

It wasn't until Buffy stood up from the extremely large bed that she noticed the changes in her own person since being attacked by the robotic nurses from…wherever the hell they were.Instead of the comfortable, yet snug clothes that she had been brought here in, she was wearing loose, very loose, faded blue pajamas.Well, that was the best description for them.They actually felt more like a hospital gown than any number of pajamas that she had ever worn.Save for the breeze.

A sudden thought crossed her mind, and quickly she reached her hands behind her, feeling the back of her new clothing.Thankfully, she felt material covering her butt and her backside.They weren't actually that bad, very comfortable in fact, if not for the fact that it was the only thing that she was wearing.Looking down at herself again, she was surprised to see that the faded blue outfit more closely resembled a hospital doctor's "scrubs" rather than the patient gowns that it felt like.She was also bare foot, making her appreciate the carpet all the more.

Deciding that she would get no answers sitting around here, she moved to the door, and almost ran right into it since it didn't open.Remembering what Goku had told them about the doors, she decided to have it voice recognized, since she didn't feel like touching her thumb to some small plate every time she wants to get in.

Recalling how Goku had said to set the doors, she said in a clear, commanding voice, "Voice recognition: Buffy Summers, command: Open."

Needless to say, she was a little surprised when a metallic voice responded from somewhere in the ceiling, "Require Code Name for Command authorization."

"Code name?" Buffy asked, confused.

"Code Name." Was repeated as statement.

Buffy thought for a second or two and almost slapped herself."Slayer," she said in a huff.A second later, a computer-typical beep of approval sounded followed by the doors opening just like they did on Star Trek: NG.Buffy sighed and stepped through, and stopped as soon as she saw Goku sitting on the couch in their 'living room', staring at her as she came out of her room.For some strange reason she suddenly felt self-conscious, though she didn't really have a reason to feel such.

"Um, hey," she greeted shyly, her trembling hands trying to find something to do with themselves before finally settling across her chest.

Unsmiling and raising his hand in greeting, Goku responded, "Hi."Strangely, his voice sounded abnormally dull to her.Very unusual from what she had seen of the intense trainer so far.'_Wonder what's going on?'_ Buffy thought to herself, moving to sit in one of the chairs opposite Goku, right before another door hissed open and Willow stepped out wearing the exact same outfit that Buffy had woken up in.

"Hey Will, how ya feelin'?" Buffy asked, sitting down, the alien chair immediately conforming to her body with a comfortable aired feeling.

"Um, actually kinda…uh, good I guess.I had a slight headache when I woke up, but it's gone now." The redheaded witch replied.She quietly made her way to the other recliner.

A couple of silent minutes after that, seemingly at the same time, Xander and Giles' doors both opened and both men, squinting at the somewhat brighter light of the room, stepped out and took in the surroundings.They also had the strange garbs."Uh, mornin', or whatever the heck time it is," Xander muttered to the girls.Giles just nodded to those already seated and made way to the one of the chairs.

After several minutes more silence, Willow commented aloud."I kinda feel like when I was a kid and just woke up from a nap, and it was raining outside.Well, no rain, but the nap part is true."

The statement met only silence.For a strange reason they all kinda felt that way, peaceful in a way that they hadn't felt since they were all children.Finally Buffy, always the first to lose patience over just about anything, blew the question on everybody's minds."All right Goku, what's going on?We go into our doctors appointment, we accidentally beat up/destroy our nurses, by the way sorry about that," Goku only smiled and waved off the apology, "and then all of a sudden a whole army of nurse-bots come in and the next thing I know, I'm waking up in 'my room'.What happened?I thought you said it was just a check up or some thing."

"I never said that," Goku stated."What I said, maybe not exactly but close enough, was 'you were going to the Clinic, where you would get translating devices installed.'You did."

As the revelation of what he'd said sunk in, Buffy quirked a brow and looked around on herself and around the room, and at the others."So, uh, where are they?" she asked him.Rather than answer, Goku moved his right hand up as though to scratch his ear.He did, but once he did, his hand went to the back of his own skull, which he then tapped noticeably.

Confused, and it showing, Buffy moved her own hand to the back of her head, expecting to feel some kind of mechanical device like with the Borg on Star Trek, even though none of the others had anything on the back of their heads.She didn't find a device or anything out of the ordinary popping out of her head.Instead, as she felt her scalp, she felt a straight line of what felt like scar tissue, running along the back tip of her head to the base of the skull.Scar tissue that she couldn't really remember getting.

Suddenly it all clicked as Buffy's eyes went wider than saucers as the truth hit home.Slowly, she removed her hand from her head, staring in muted shock at Goku.He grimaced and sadly nodded his head.He couldn't meet her stare as her shock shifted to anger and outrage.

As their declared leader stared down at their trainer, the others slowly came to the realization that Goku had hinted at, and they probably should have known from the beginning would be the case.While Willow and Giles were far easier at accepting it, both having undergone surgery (appendix, tonsils, etc) before, Xander and Buffy were a little less than comfortable with the fact.

"Wait, wait-wait-wait-wait just a second here!" Xander exclaimed, after checking to feel his own scar."You-you mean to say that-that, that th-th-they…you did brain surgery on US!!"

Goku didn't react, not in the least, and it was this silent admission that gave them the answer."Why?" Buffy asked in a voice full of hurt and betrayal.The dark haired alien folded his hands before him, covering his mouth as he thought of the best answer.Finally he just gave the one the doctors gave him and everybody else when asked the same question.

"It's the only way to install the translating devices.The translators are actually little larger than the thinness of a dime, and at levels not even that.The "translator" is actually a thin sheet of interconnected synapses that are programmed with the combined knowledge of every language, mood, dialect, gesture, and innuendo of every single species here, as well as on Evil's side.For some reason the original designer of them thought that it might be a good idea if Good and Evil knew how to insult one another when fighting." Goku explained quietly.

The group was quiet after this, slightly digesting this new information.Finally Buffy and Xander both decided that it was too trivial, not to mention already done, to hold a grudge for.Besides, it took care of the language problem that had been on Buffy's thoughts."OK, never mind that.Besides, it takes care of the whole language barrier problem.But wasn't there some way besides _surgery_?" Buffy asked.

Goku just slightly shook his head to the negative."No, ever since the 'translator' was developed, the Council has made it a requirement that every fighter, no matter whether they fight or not, gets a translator installed.I don't know how long ago it might have been, but the real plus is that sometimes you find yourself speaking some language you never even heard before you came here.That is if you can call it a plus," Goku responded sourly.

As Buffy considered this statement, Willow caught the one phrase that she had missed."What do you mean, 'no matter whether they fight or not'?" Willow asked."You mean we can actually choose _not_ to fight?" she added hopefully.

Goku smirked slightly and shook his head.Putting his hands on his knees he replied, "No Willow.There are a limited number of fighters that fight every three months at the main competition.It changes every tournament, mostly due to the number of fighters available by each side.I have no idea how they go about choosing the number each year, but all I know is, I show up, I get my fight schedule, and I fight my opponent and try to win the tournament.It's the ones that are inbetween; the preliminaries I told you about earlier that choose which of Good are going in.Only the best, meaning the top however many are entering this time get to fight in the main tournament.Oh, and a word of warning, if you don't fight by the third tournament from the time that you come to the Compound, the Powers either remove their immortality, or they just kill you.I've never been one not to fight, but either way, I'm still not stupid enough to tempt my luck by missing out unless I have a valid excuse."

"Oh, OK, so all we have to do is fight in the preliminary tournament held here, and if we don't win then we don't have to go to the big tournament where we, uh, have to uh, kill or be killed?" Willow asked nervously dancing around the thought of having to kill another being that wasn't a vampire or something pure evil.

As though reading her mind, Goku assured her, "Don't worry Willow, there's a reason they call it Evil.Most of whom you might be facing are going to be demons or Warlocks, probably from various Earth's and Hell's.And, no, you don't have to fight in the preliminary tournament."

"Oh, good," Willow sighed with relief.

"Because you're automatically going to the main tournament for the next fifteen tournaments," he added.

Every eye in the room was automatically on him.He almost seemed to shrink down a little under the stares."What?!!" Willow screeched.The nervousness lessened only to be replaced by a growing concern as Goku sighed as though bearing some indefinable weight.

Goku sat back and looked at each of his new students in turn."While you were in…at your Clinic appointment, I went to the Director's building, where you signed those forms earlier," they all nodded, "And I tried to find out why you had been given such an intense schedule, I mean I was three times as strong as all of you, magics and all, combined when I first came here, and I never had it this rough.Usually if the recruit shows promise we'll intensify the training to maybe something close to what yours is right now, but…Apparently the Powers expect you to be in the very next tournament, and in order to make sure that you'll even qualify, I'm going to be putting two of you through training that would make me pass out after the first week, well when I first got here anyway.Now I think I can keep up with it, I hope."

All of the humans subconsciously gulped at the same time as he explained this.Buffy was the first to accept it, after all, she had been the one that had gotten them all involved in this anyway.So, taking a deep breath Buffy asked the one question she dreaded the answer to more than any other."So, when do we start?"

The others all looked at her like she was completely bonkers, save Goku, who held a look of understanding, and still some pity for her."Tomorrow," he answered."After you get some sleep.I'll be here to get you all up for your assignments."Quietly he got up and started to the exit, but was stopped by a question from Willow.

"What do you mean you'll only be putting _two_ of us through th-that workout?Which two?" she asked concerned for her friends, or for herself.

Goku grimaced and decided to explain."I'll personally be training Buffy and Xander, because I can push Buffy the hardest out of all of the Trainers here, and I can probably get Xander to _at least_ her current level by the time we're done.Willow, since you're studying magic, you will personally be trained by two of the four Arch Mages I told you about earlier.Giles, mostly because of his physical age can't really be fully trained in either aspect, but we'll all be together for group training sessions, which will take up most of the evenings for the next six weeks.Don't worry Giles, we have something special planned for you.It'll help you a lot, but sorry," he said with a grin, "I'm not allowed to say."

"Oh," Willow muttered.

Starting for the exit again, Goku was saying, "Now you all had better get a good night's sleep.You're going to need it for tomorrow."

"Well I'm not particularly tired right now, especially since we've been sleeping for the past…" Buffy trailed off as she tried to guess at how long they'd been out.

"Seven hours." Goku supplied.

"Huh?" the blonde asked.

"You were knocked out exactly seven hours ago.But you've been unconscious, not asleep.There is a difference.Believe me, I know." Goku elaborated.

Suddenly Buffy smiled as she sat back down on the couch."Well I never really could go to sleep without a bedtime story.How about the rest of you?" she shared a grin with Xander and Willow as she asked.They quickly emulated her in expression and turned to the Saiyan.

"Nope, never could sleep a wink unless I heard "How the Little Engine Could" at least twice, maybe even ten times," Xander responded with a wider grin at the older man.

"Me either," Willow added, smiling."Course I was usually the one that ended up reading "The Little Engine that could" to Xander ten or twenty times a night."

"Oh, by the way, in case I never did, thanks for that Wills," Xander half turned to her.

Willow only brightened her smile and nodded her approval and thanks for the statement.Goku meanwhile was turning the gears over in his head as he realized what Buffy was doing.When he had it figured, he smirked ruefully and turned to the Slayer, "So is this your roundabout way of asking me to tell you more about myself?" he asked.

Buffy gave him a lopsided grin and raised an eyebrow, impressed.She turned to the others, "He's a quick one ain't he?"Interestingly they all, including Giles broke out laughing.

"At least he got it quicker than Angel did!" Willow called out between giggles.

At the name 'Angel' Goku tensed, not expecting to have to tell them the secret so soon.Giles, who had quit laughing at the same statement, noticed Goku's reaction and asked him about it."Goku, what's wrong?"That stopped the laughter all together as all attention was back on Goku.

"Oh boy," he muttered under his breath before grabbing one of the other chairs and sitting back down, backwards.

They were all quiet, waiting patiently for their trainer to explain what was bothering him.Finally it became obvious that he wasn't going to say anything without a push."Goku, is there something wrong?" Buffy asked, her concern obvious in her voice.

Goku breathed a heavy sigh and squeezed his eyes tight, as though bracing himself for some unknown pain.Finally he breathed out, "Could I tell you later?" he asked, his words pleading.Buffy scrunched her face in concern, but shrugged and nodded her head, saying, "Yeah sure.Besides, you're the trainer.And if it'll help, I'd much rather know your story rather than hear something that'll probably depress me further."

Goku grinned at the humor and nodded."OK, my story huh?Well, I guess to understand any of it I'll have to start at the very beginning.Roughly about five hundred years ago on my home.There's a lot of back-story you see.I mean if you would try to explain the concept of Slayers and Vampires to an alien, who had never even been to Earth, let alone knew of it's legends, just imagine the time you'd have huh?"

Seeing the nods of agreement, especially from Giles, Goku grinned once again and began his ancient tale.

"I suppose for you to understand any of my history, you have to know the whole story.That's unfortunate because it really began over five hundred years ago.I told you that I was a Saiyan, well that's only partly true, because I'm only partly Saiyan.I'm more like 1/8th Saiyan, the rest human."

"I guess it really began on a planet very far from Earth.Nobody can really know what it was called since it was destroyed a little over five hundred years ago.On this planet was where the Saiyan race was born.Saiyan's are natural fighters, from the day they are born to the day they die, preferably in battle, they strive to be stronger, always facing opponents that are stronger than them, otherwise what's the challenge?Well at some point the Saiyan king struck a deal with an intergalactic gangster, who was powerful enough, without weapons mind you, to destroy every planet in the universe, named Frieza.The deal was, that Frieza would not destroy the entire Saiyan race if they worked for him.Specifically going to worlds and wiping out their populations so that he could sell the planets to whoever wanted them.The way that the Saiyan's worked, they would send one of their infants, which was already as strong as an adult human, in a space pod to the planet they wanted to wipe out, and that Saiyan child, truly aggressive and blood thirsty as all Saiyan children were from the beginning, would be left to wipe out that planet.The true reason for this lies in the Saiyan's secret weapon, their tails."

"Their tails?" Buffy interrupted, confused.

Goku nodded and continued."A Saiyan's tail represents the Saiyan's greatest strength.Every Saiyan with a tail that sees the light of a full moon will transform into, for lack of a better term, a giant ape monster.Only the strongest of Saiyan's can control themselves in this form, all others are mindless ravenous beasts.And as you've no doubt noticed, I do have my tail, but also I am among those strongest and also, there's no moon in the Compound so no worries."Goku unwrapped the furry "belt" around his waist and all could see that it indeed was a tail, which was wagging much like a feline's tail rather than a monkey's.

"Anyway, one of these Saiyan babies were sent to Earth, the Earth of my reality keep in mind.His Saiyan name was Kakarrot, but when he was found by an elderly hermit, the hermit, named Gohan, named him "Goku".Before you ask any questions, let me finish.Goku at first was like all Saiyan children, extremely aggressive, blood thirsty, and downright mean.Then, one day, something happened, but Goku hit his head, and after recuperating, he was the best-behaved child this side of pure happiness.His adopted father, who he called grandfather, raised him in the mountains until the day that the hermit died, killed by some giant ape monster.After a time, Goku made some friends and traveled the world with them, looking for magical jewels, called 'Dragon Balls' that when you gathered all seven, they summoned a mystical dragon that would grant you any wish.After they had gathered the Dragon Balls, Goku went to train under another hermit, this one a martial arts master named 'Master Roshi'.Goku wanted to enter and win the World Martial Arts Tournament that was held annually.Well, Goku wasn't the only student Master Roshi was training.The second was a young human boy, about 13 years old who also wanted to win the Martial Arts Tournament, named Krillin.Together they learned the Martial Arts that Roshi taught and together they became some of the strongest warriors on the planet.Well, about thirty years down the line, Goku is married and has one son.His wife, Chi Chi, was the loudest most overbearing, controlling, and dangerous freak this side of Freddy Krueger, and even he would be scared of her if you got her mad.His son was named Gohan, in memory of the man that raised him.Gohan, being half Saiyan also had a tail.Over the years Goku had made a lot of enemies, but many more friends.A case in both was another alien child that was actually 'born' on Earth.His name was Piccolo, and he was a Namekian.I'll show you a holo later.Well Piccolo and Goku had a long-standing rivalry, and both were among the strongest beings on the face of the planet.Until Raditz, Goku older pure blood Saiyan brother arrived to discover why Goku hadn't destroyed the planet yet.Raditz then made the unfortunate mistake of kidnapping Goku's son, and then planning on destroying the entire planet himself.For once, Goku and Piccolo put aside their rivalry to face the evil Saiyan on equal terms.Unfortunately, Raditz still whooped their asses.Until Piccolo revealed a new technique he had been working on.Fortunately it was enough, but the sad part was that in order to keep Raditz from dodging it, Goku had to hold him in place.So Goku was dead.But being dead works a funny way on my world.It's exactly like being alive; you just have a halo above your head.Heck, before I joined up with the tournament I myself was dead at least twice.The only way to be brought to life, at least the only way that we ever knew of was to wish somebody back to life with the Dragon Balls.So when Raditz made his final threat that two stronger Saiyan's would be arriving on Earth a year down the line, the 'Z fighters' as they called themselves started to train, and train hard.Piccolo, having seen that Gohan had the greatest potential out of all of them, personally trained the 8-year-old half-Saiyan.A year down the line, Goku was brought back to life after having trained with a big-time guru on the other side, and came back in the nick of time, just to see Piccolo sacrifice himself to save Gohan from being killed.This is important because there was another Namekian on the planet, and that was Piccolo's father and the creator of the Dragon Balls, named Kami.So Goku faced off with the two Saiyan's, the Saiyan Prince Vegita, and his flunky sidekick who I don't really remember the name of right now.Doesn't matter though because Vegita killed him because he wasn't doing his job right and killing Goku.So Vegita entered the fight, and it was pretty much a stand off until Goku actually managed to blast the other pure Saiyan into orbit.That wasn't all though.Vegita came back, slightly injured, and revealed that he could transform and still win, just by creating an artificial source of full moon light.Needless to say, the paralyzed Goku, (not permanently, just because he put so much energy into his attack that he couldn't barely move, and not without some major hurtin'), was quickly outmatched.Leaving it to his son Gohan, and his best friend Krillin to finish off the giant hairy beast.Somehow, not sure how exactly, Vegita's tail was cut off and he reverted back to his human form.Then Gohan's tail grew back.Finally Vegita was beaten, and Goku, not wanting his best friend to become a murderer, let Vegita leave peacefully in his space pod.Over the next three or so months, Goku healed up, and Bulma, his friend that originally dragged him into looking for the Dragon Balls all those years ago, with some help found the intergalactic spaceship that Kami, the Namekian had arrived to Earth in.Then with Gohan and Krillin, Bulma left to search for Namek, the home world of Kami and Piccolo, hoping that they possessed the technology of the Dragon Balls.Well they did, but unfortunately, the Z fighters weren't the only ones to have heard about the Dragon Ball technology.Frieza also had and had personally come to Namek to get his wish of Immortality.Well, after a whole month of traveling and living on Namek, Krillin and Gohan were faced with some tough choices.Apparently Vegita had recovered earlier than expected and was already on the planet, showing off some new moves the Z fighters had shown him.Then, at the end of the month, Goku in his own spaceship built by Bulma's father, arrived on the planet just in time to save Vegita, Gohan, and Krillin from being killed by Frieza's executioner squad, the Ginyu Force.Goku defeated the flunkies with absolute ease, and even had fun doing it.Then after some minor trouble with the Ginyu force's leader, Goku was placed into a healing chamber by Vegita and the others, which would have him completely healed in 72 hours.Unfortunately, they still had to deal with Frieza.While Vegita was sleeping, Gohan and Krillin, along with a young Namekian healer named Dende they had made friends with, called the Dragon of the planet Namek and made their first two wishes, that all the fighters killed in Vegita's assault were brought back to life, and then that Piccolo would be transported to Namek.Before they could make the final wish however, the ruler of the Namek's, the maker of the first Dragon Balls, died, prematurely I might add.And so the dragon and the balls disappeared.So that left Gohan, Krillin, and an enraged Vegita to face Frieza, with Piccolo on the other side of the planet making it there as fast as he could.Apparently Frieza was the declared most powerful warlord in the universe for a reason.He had over three transformations, each which made him ten times stronger than the last.In the end, his power level reached well over five million.At each stage however, Gohan, Krillin, Piccolo who came in at the third stage/second transformation, and then Vegita fought him every step of the way.Until Goku was released from the healing chamber.At first it looked like Goku might actually be as strong as the final form of Frieza, but then when they actually began to fight it out, it became obvious that the ice-cold space monster was just playing with the Saiyan from Earth.So, using his final technique, something called a 'Spirit Bomb', Goku knocked Frieza down and out with it, but that didn't quite destroy the monster.No, it only made him madder.So, when the dust settled from the chunk of the planet that was taken out, Frieza, not saying a word, just standing there, killed Krillin in the blink of an eye before Goku and the rest.Enraged to a point beyond description, Goku transformed.Not into the ape monster, but for the first time in over ten thousand years of Saiyan heritage, Goku was the first Super Saiyan in existence.Then, Super Saiyan Goku and Frieza fought it out, Goku not only keeping up but giving Frieza a run for his money.Then King Kai, the big guru that had trained Goku on the other side, came up with a plan.With Piccolo and Kami alive and Kami back on Earth, the Earth Dragon Balls were active once more.So King Kai had the Earth dragon revive all the people that Frieza had killed, which included the maker of the original Dragon Balls.So the Namekian Dragon, having one more wish to fulfill, awoke on the planet Namek.Goku then had Dende wish that everyone on the Planet Namek, except for Goku and Frieza would be transported to Earth.That left the two godlike warriors to finish it once and for all.In the end, Frieza was cut into several big chunks, and Goku barely escaped the exploding planet in a space pod.A year later, Goku shows back up, in the exact spot that a stranger named Trunks said he would arrive in.Trunks was from the future, and had come back to warn Goku of his death and two androids that would destroy the world.You see, Trunks was also a Super Saiyan, meaning he was at least part Saiyan.Half-Saiyan it seemed, since he was Vegita's son.But also Bulma's son too.Anyway, skipping a whole lot of history that you might actually fall asleep hearing, Goku had one more son, Goten, and Vegita a daughter after Trunks.Oh, they did stop the Androids.Goten had three kids of his own, two sons and a daughter.Trunks had two daughters, and Gohan one daughter, first born, and one son.Goten's daughter had two sons of her own, the eldest of which had a son himself.Trunks' youngest daughter had one child, a daughter.This daughter also had one son, but with the eldest son of Goten's daughter.I'm that son.Reason I say it like this is because both my parents were killed when I was very young, so I never got to know them.People say that I look just like my Great Grandfather, as well as my Great great Grandfather." Goku finished running his fingers through his large spiky black hair."I don't really see it, to be honest."

After he was finished, there was total silence in the large domed room.After several minutes, Buffy finally broke the silence."Wow," she muttered in awe."So you're the great great grandson of your Earth's greatest hero?And you're named after him?Talk about having big shoes to fill."

Goku shrugged, "I've done OK I guess.Coming to the Compound definitely helped out in a lot of regards.But in the end, I guess the original Goku had accomplished the most, even though by this point I've lived nearly twice as long as he ever did.Which is why I stay here a lot of the time now.There's just nothing to do on my world.That's the way it is with most of the experienced warriors here.After they win enough tournaments, they gather enough respect that they can have their entire Universe monitored for anything big, bad, or major and they can get there immediately to take care of it.After a while, the bad guys just stop trying, you know?"

Buffy shrugged herself and replied, "Not really.It's almost like every week I've got a new big bad to take down, and every other week another Apocalypse to stop.You know?" she added sarcastically.

Goku grinned and just said, "Give it a few years.Just give it a few years."

Buffy just shook her head and yawned unexpectedly."Tired?" Goku asked.Buffy glared.

"Well whether you are or not, you all have exactly five hours to sleep, because in six hours, training begins.I'll be back to wake you all up and help you get ready for the day, but the only advice that I'm giving right now, is sleep.You can talk about everything later, since that's what most groups do when they first get here.Talk about it.Because of taking up so much timing today, we wasted a good portion of the day, meaning less time to sleep, and really sleep.Believe me, from personal experience, if you don't get enough sleep you'll be miserable and exhausted halfway through the first training session.So please, just get some sleep," Goku begged as he stood up and went to the MTC.

Buffy got up with him and followed him to the red portal."All right Goku, we get the hint.We'll call it a night.By the way what time is it anyway?" she asked.

Goku hesitated before entering his coordinates.Turning to her, "Uh, that would take way too long to explain right now.But tomorrow, OK?"

Buffy nodded, and then leaned forward and hugged the taller warrior good night."Good night Goku," she whispered.He held her but a brief moment before whispering back, "Good night Buffy.Pleasant dreams."

Then he set the coordinates, and disappeared through the glowing red circle.Buffy watched after him for a moment or two, and then turned back, appraisedily to her 'team'."Well?" she asked quiet enough that they could still hear her.

"Well what?" Xander asked dumbly.

"Do we sleep, do we talk, or do we try and back out of this?" Buffy put forth.

The other three sat there, understanding what she was asking of them, and exchanged glances between them.Finally Willow answered for all of them, including Buffy, by answering with around a yawn, "We sleep, and try to do our absolute best to keep up with whatever it is that we're supposed to do."

Accepting this as final nomination, vote, and written law, they all got up and went to the rooms that they had come out of, Willow going for DNA, Xander going for human motion, and Giles doing what Buffy had done, voice activation.Though his open code was somewhat more…unusual than her simple word of "Open".Giles opened his door with, "Foris" and then Buffy heard him mutter another word, "Occludo" which then closed the door.

Buffy put it out of her mind as she made her way to her bed, the door closing behind her, and as soon as she managed herself under the sheets and her head firmly to a pillow, she was fast asleep, dreaming of tomorrow.


	3. The First Day

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_Disclaimer:_           In no way do I own any of these characters, or their histories, except ofcourse for the Powers, the Compound, and the character of Goku, though not his history or name.  All characters and other links to the television show _"Buffy the Vampire Slayer"_ belong to Joss Whedon, and the respective production companies.  Anything related to Dragon Ball Z belong to their respective creators.  This is entirely a work of fiction, and in no way do I promote or believe any of the things within here written, nor do I stand to make any sort of profit.

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**The First day:**

            "RISE AND SHINE!!!  RISE AND SHINE!!!!!" was belted out with such volume that the permanent fixtures shook with vibration.

            Buffy bolted straight awake, her body tense, ready for anything.  Vampires, please!  Demons, no sweat!  Her mother waking her for school?  OK that might be a problem, but still she could handle it, maybe.  Finally, after having shot out of the large bed like a cannon ball, Buffy realized where she was and what she was doing.

            Blushing and semi-glad that no one was there to see her reaction; Buffy relaxed, only to jump at the next bellow, "RISE AND SHIIIIIINNNE!!!!!!!"  Slowly she deduced where the offending sound was coming from.  The living room.

            "Open," Buffy commanded harshly.  The doors slid open, just in time for Buffy to get blown back by the wind of the next call out, so loud that nothing could have understood it.  She saw Goku standing in the middle of the large room with an annoying grin on his face.  He was filling his lungs for another call when the other three doors opened simultaneously.  Seeing that he was still going to yell, Buffy picked up the katana that they had gotten yesterday, removed it without thinking and then threw it straight at the 1/8th Saiyan.  Seeing the blade moving straight at his head, Goku didn't yell again, instead dodging the flying blade and catching it by the hilt with his right hand.

            "Nice throw," he commented, rotating it on his wrist.

            Buffy, her hair tussled; her posture tenser than an angry panther, and her expression would've melted the skin and muscles from Goku's bones if it could have.  Buffy stalked forward, and not even thinking, grabbed back her sword, and solidly punched Goku across the jaw.  "WHAT the _HELL_ do you THINK you are **_DOING!!!!!!!!!_**" she screamed at the top of her lungs, not even close to matching whatever bellow he was shouting earlier.

            Goku grinned that same annoying pitiful smile he seemed to have reserved just for Buffy, and answered, "Waking you up for your first day of training."

            Everyone stared in complete disbelief at him.  "What?" Buffy exclaimed, completely exasperated.  Goku just grinned and held up his Global, which he had told them was what the advanced palm pilot was called.  On it, displayed in very large red numbers was the time.  5:59:58…59… and then as soon as the time changed to 6:00 AM, every light in the place turned to the brightest intensity and some of them began to strobe, while a loud whine sounded out for approximately thirty seconds, and then turned into an even louder whine that sounded more like a train than anything else.

            Everyone except Goku had their hands over their ears, and he was actually smiling.  "GOKU!!" Buffy shouted, or tried to, over the train noise.  Goku quirked an eyebrow and looked her way, indicating that he had indeed heard her.  "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING **ON!!!!**" she screamed, the ON!! part being shouted just as the overwhelming noise cut out and the lighting went back to normal.

            Goku continued to grin as they all looked around in confusion and let their hands away from their ears, not entirely trusting the silence.  Finally, "That," he paused, pointing to the ceiling in general, "was the wake up call.  The entire Compound is on the same time zone, so everybody gets woken up at the same time.  When everybody in the apartment is awake, it cuts out, but not before.  When you shouted, it was loud enough for the room's computer to be convinced that everyone was awake.  I decided to get to you first.  It's hell waking up to that thing.  If you don't wake up by level two, which was what you stopped it at, it only gets louder and way too annoying."

            As they all accepted this, Buffy nodded and thanked him, but before she could completely vocalize, the lights over the bar area that everybody had assumed to be some kind of breakfast or bar area, correctly by the way, suddenly lit up and four plates of food suddenly appears as though out of thin air.  Actually from the countertop, but that's beside the point.

            "Better hurry," Goku advised.  "You get thirty minutes to eat.  Period.  Whether you're through or not, at the end of thirty minutes, that food disappears.  No exceptions.  Go on, I've already eaten, and you all have a _very_ busy day, as I'm sure some of you no doubt remember."

            Buffy blanched and nodded and could not have made it faster to the seat that she noticed had a gold embroidered lining, and a small stenciled name just this side of the steaming plate of blueberry pancakes.  Noticing that they were already soaked in the absolute best maple syrup that she had ever tasted, she took several bites and swallows before turning to Goku, who was sitting in one of the recliners looking at something on his Global.

            "This is great, Goku!  But how did you people know what we eat for breakfast?" Willow asked.  Before the 1/8th Saiyan could answer, Buffy added, "Yeah, I mean, blueberry pancakes are like my favorite breakfast, ever since I was a kid.  How'd you, or rather the computer, know that?"

            Goku shrugged and without looking at them said two words, "The Powers."  Unsurprisingly, that did answer all of their questions.  While Buffy was having the best blueberry pancakes that she had ever conceived, the others had their own favorite morning meals.  Xander was also having pancakes, but they were more of the regular variety with strawberry jam to smear over them instead of syrup.  Willow, strangely, was having orange and pineapple flavored grits, and everyone somehow expected Giles to have some kind of typical 'English breakfast', but to everyone's shock, save the two kids that brought them there, his favorite meal seemed to be McDonald's ham scrambled egg and mozzarella cheese biscuit, x 3.  All of them were finished in just under fifteen minutes.  As soon as they were, the empty plates, utensils and glasses disappeared in a sparkling green effect, then a green light shown over each "place mat."

            "Still hungry?" Goku asked from his seat.

            "Not really to be honest," Buffy muttered, having filled herself with the delicious meal.  Similar sentiments were echoed across the board.

            "Then say aloud, and all of you, 'Not hungry anymore,'  Simplistic, I know, but it still works." Goku explained to them.  They repeated the command phrase and the green lights disappeared.

            Taking this as cue that breakfast was over, they each stood up, waiting for any kind of instructions, having absolutely no clue what to do next.  Goku spent maybe a minute more looking over whatever he was reading on his Global, and then closed it and stood up to appraise them.  He nodded his head in slight approval and ordered them to pick up the packages (minus Buffy and Xander's swords) they had picked up yesterday and to open them in their respective rooms.  Then to "get ready" for the day, which included a shower and getting dressed.

            Buffy walked into her room carrying the two plastic wraps and the box that was somewhat bulky, more like a large foot locker than a normal cardboard box of any size.  Kind of flattened, but not really.  She decided to open this first, and it took her a moment or two to work it out.  Finally she read the print that said, (in another an altogether alien language that she found she now understood despite reading it as said language), "MODEL 5: Parts 3 & 4" and a switch just beneath it that she understood said, "Press to Open."  So she did.

            When it opened with a strangled hiss, like an airlock closing, she found that she could now lift the lid.  What made her stare though was what she saw on the inside.  Folded, almost neatly was a vinyl-like material "leather jacket" style jacket and two, what looked like, black leather army boots.  "What the…?" she said aloud.

            Shrugging, she turned to the two wrapped packages.  After ripping apart the plastic, which came apart easier than she had expected it to, in the smaller one she found three sets of a kind of black vinyl leotard/one piece swimsuit.  She also noted, that if they had been swimsuits, they would be the kind that were made for swimming, there was nothing low-cut or at all revealing about them in the slightest.  "Hunh," she grunted, putting them on top of the jacket, which she had taken out and laid on the bed.

            In the last package she found, again three pair, gi-style black, and again the same vinyl material, pants.  She sized them up against her waist and was mildly surprised to see that they almost fit perfectly, leaving enough room to freely move without bunching up or getting in the way, and not at all too tight.  She also noticed that the primary color seemed to be a favored black.  Shrugging, and assuming, since the drawers in the dresser were completely empty, that these were her training clothes, she grabbed one pair of the leotard and the pants and went to take her shower in the bathroom.

             Inside the bathroom, Buffy found a pretty basic, if not spacious, design.  A somewhat typical porcelain, or at least that's what it felt like, toilet, and an entire bar/counter with the metal sink, with that sensor that turns the water on and off, in the middle of it.  Surprisingly, the mirror, compared to the size of the counter was rather small, just a three foot tall round bureau mirror with straight laced polished metal edges.  In fact the entire room had that effect, almost like it was too clean, or very sterile and metallic.

            The floor thankfully was carpeted with the same material, and the walls the same curved smooth grayish color with absolutely no outstanding decoration.  And then she turned her attention to what could only be the shower.  Only it wasn't.  A shower anyway.  Neither was it a bath nor any other type of cleaning area that Buffy was familiar with.  Just past the toilet, to the right of it when sitting actually, was an alcove into the smooth wall.  Aside from the counter/sink, the toilet and the roll of paper next to it, and the glass door, it was the only break in the gray dome.  Inside the alcove was a square of patterned tiles on the floor, and three long glass panels that could have been vertical fluorescent lights, one on each wall, which was squared off into corners by the way.  The ceiling held a large circular fluorescent-like looking light, and that was all.  All of the lights however, for the moment, were off so Buffy, not entirely trusting what she had seen of "Compound" technology so far, wasn't so sure.

            Finally, feeling that she was wasting time, Buffy called Goku into his room, just as he was leaving Giles'.  Entering as she held the door for him, Goku proceeded to the bathroom and waited for Buffy to join him before revealing a panel hidden right next to the alcove.  In it was several settings.  Rather than say anything or explain it, he just pointed to the settings that he was manipulating, making sure that she saw him setting it for; 'Vocal', 'Shower On', and 'Shower Off'.  Marking the setting of how the shower was to be activated, and which phrase activated it, and which turned it off again.  Then he left, expecting to walk straight into Willow's room once he was out of Buffy's.

            Shaking her head, Buffy closed the doors behind Goku, grateful that he had helped, yet a little miffed in the way he had done it, but she could understand, somewhat.  So with that out of the way, and trusting these people to have her shower set the way she liked it, as they seemed to do that with just about everything else, Buffy stripped and made ready to step directly into the shower without it "warming up" first.

            What surprised Buffy first was that as soon as she dropped her shirt and pants to the floor, they seemed to simply be absorbed into the floor, which left her with just her training clothes.  Hoping that wouldn't happen with all of the dirty clothes she dropped on the floor, Buffy stepped into the alcove and briefly wondered about water being sprayed on the outside, but seeing they had an absorbing floor, not to mention a probable force field that held it all inside, (which they did, but it wasn't the water it was holding inside), Buffy didn't worry too long over it.

            Stepping inside, Buffy wondered briefly where the water would be coming from before saying clearly, "Shower On," and she found out.  As soon as the words left her mouth, Buffy felt more than saw an energy force field come alive in the opening of the alcove.  It looked like nothing was there, no lights, no crackling energy, no nothing.  But the smell and feel of ionized air was unmistakable.

            Surprised, Buffy didn't even have time to react before the "shower" actually started.  The four lights suddenly came on, a soft bluish vibrating color, and a sharp high pitched humming whine filled the air.  Buffy didn't know what was happening, but she suddenly felt very afraid.  Everywhere the light hit her body, she vibrated; skin, muscles, bones, even the very atoms of her body vibrated. It was like standing next to a pounding stereo at a party, except this was much more intense and focused. Except that this was so much more intense and focused.  Just standing there for a minute or so, Buffy began to notice something else.  She was beginning to actually "feel" clean.  But that humming whine was starting to give her a headache and the strange light was only adding to it.  Closing her eyes helped some, but when she tried to cover her ears, that only gave her a headache that much quicker.  And that of course is when things start to go screwy.

            After five minutes of the blue light treatment, they suddenly begin to shift to green, and as they do so, the high-pitched whine becomes even more so until Buffy no longer hears it as a humming whine, but as a very annoying and audible dog whistle.  As for the sensations of the body, the vibrating molecules suddenly are switched into turbo and her skin _is_ actually vibrating.  Not to mention her hair and…other things.

            As weird as it all was, Buffy wasn't about to deny how pleasant it still was.  And pretty soon the vibrations began to take a more interesting effect on her.  Buffy rarely ever let herself get this worked up this early in the day, but seeing as she was on a time limit, she really saw masturbating in the shower as a real bad idea.  Yet she wasn't exactly the one doing it.

            Wanting to end this before it could go any further, Buffy gave the command, "Shower Off," but she couldn't hear her own voice.  Only that incessant whine.  She tried again, and she knew she was saying something, she just couldn't hear it.  Nothing but that god-awful whine that was coming from the lights.  She kept trying, shouting even, but that only seemed to get her even more worked up.

            When the light hit an almost emerald green, Buffy could barely stand it anymore, let alone remain standing.  She tried to just walk out of the alcove, but the force field prevented her, sparking every time and everywhere she touched it.  It didn't really hurt, aside from the initial shock, but when she placed her hand evenly on the field, it still sparked but it felt more like leaving your hand on a vibrator.  It certainly didn't help with what she was trying to avoid doing.

            Buffy's breaths began to come in ragged gasps as the vibrations of the lights and the force field, which she was leaning her back against, provided so much stimulation that she was on the literal edge.  Her skin, her breasts, her nipples, hell, even her tiny little hairs were receiving so much fiery sensation and stimulation that just one more push or two more minutes and she'd be screaming on the floor.  She decided to help herself along since she was at the point of either cumming or dying, and she brought up her right hand, and pinched her left nipple as hard as she could.

            The resulting scream was loud enough to be heard even above the whine.  Unfortunately, that just caused the lights to begin to shift back to blue, or maybe purple, she couldn't really tell from the sudden lack of energy from what had to be one of the best orgasms she had ever had in her young life.  She almost slumped to the floor, but she managed to keep her footing, just.

            Usually after cumming that hard, or even getting that worked up, Buffy had felt dirty, sweaty, and like she needed a shower or something.  Now, she was clean as soon as the sweat and juices touched her outer skin.  She suddenly suspected that she was going to like her showers from now on.  If she could ever get out of the first one.

            Finally, after only ten minutes of green light, the high-pitched whine lowered some and Buffy found that she could hear herself speak, but again just barely.  She commanded one more time, "Shower Off!" and almost immediately, the whine stopped, the lights turned off, and the force field sparked one final time to indicate that it was gone.  After fifteen minutes of that high-pitched whine in her ears, Buffy's ears were still ringing a little and it took her a moment or so to get herself steadied before stepping out of the alcove, cleaner than the day after she was born.

            The blonde Slayer just shook her head, clearing out the buzzing she still had and put on the leotard and the pants.  She then went out to her bedroom, surprised a little to see the packages still laying around, after seeing the vacu-floor with her pajamas.  She put on the boots next, even though there were no socks, and laced them up before grabbing the jacket and sword, putting them on, and heading out to the living room, where unfortunately everyone else was waiting for her.

            "Uh, hey guys," she greeted sheepishly.  "Sorry I took so long, but I, uh…I, uh, kinda had to figure out the shower portion of the shower.  Sorry."

            "Ah, no worries Buff, we all had some trouble, but Goku helped us out with the finer mechanics of a very relaxing, _"Sonic Shower"_.  From the way Will's been blushing since she stepped out, I'm kinda guessing that both of yours were a bit more…interesting?" Xander grinned roguishly as the innuendo worked its way through Buffy's brain.

            Buffy immediately fixed the teenage boy with the "death glare".  He gulped and took several steps so that Giles and Goku were between him and the Slayer.  Buffy let it go and turned to Willow, who was blushing that much more from Xander's comments.  Buffy made eye-contact and asked, "I, uh, take it that you had some…fun?…in the shower too?"

            Willow just furiously nodded and then sat down, thoroughly embarrassed now.  It was at this point that Buffy noticed what everyone was wearing and came to a startling revelation.  She, Xander, and Goku, (And Giles to a much lesser degree) were all dressed practically identical.

            All three of them wore the same black leather, or vinyl from the feel, jacket that was devoid of ornament or any specific design.  Just sleeves, black material down to just below the waist, past Buffy's waist, and a spiked collar that seemed to like staying in the "Elvis" fashion.  Both men were wearing their jackets, so while she could not tell easily, she imagined that both were wearing tank tops of the same material her leotard was made out of.  They all covered the same amount of chest, except maybe Goku's, his seemed to be cut so that it was mid-chest region on him, while Buffy and Xander's were a couple of inches beneath their collarbones.  As far as the pants and boots, completely identical.  Buffy also noted that Xander was already wearing his sword, over his right shoulder like Goku, while she had put hers over the left.

            Meanwhile Giles and Willow each wore something rather unique. Giles was the closest to what the others wore, with gi-style black vinyl pants and military style combat boots.  That was where the similarities ended however because he was actually wearing a belt and while he had a black shirt on, she could tell that it was a T-shirt rather than the tanks like she and Xander wore.  Also, his jacket seemed to be somewhat sleeker, and a brown faded leather rather than vinyl black.  She also noticed that her's, Xander's, and possibly (she wasn't exactly sure) Goku's jackets had thick shoulder pads, Giles' didn't.  He still had on his spectacles, though she hoped he would take them off before the actual fighting portion of training began.

            Willow was without a doubt the farthest from what the others wore.  The best way to describe it was a jumpsuit.  It was black, which Buffy had noted was the chosen color for the day, but with patches of silver/gray where the pockets were.  She had pockets over each breast, one on the left shoulder, and another on the right elbow, and of course the usual pockets for pants, at the waist on both sides and each buttock.  Buffy saw that she also had kneepads.

            After inspecting everybody's wardrobe, Buffy turned back to Goku, and raised her eyebrows in question.  Thinking she was still on the shower issue, before she could speak Goku said, "The, ah, the showers aren't exactly the showers you might be used to.  These showers are based on the theory that certain harmonics and sound waves can be used to dissolve and dissipate certain molecules, specifically unattached dirt, grime, and dead skin on the body.  It's been safely modified so that it causes absolutely no internal damage of any kind, brain or otherwise.  Though, I'll be the last to deny that having vibrations coming at you from all sides doesn't elicit certain…reactions."

            Buffy just kept staring at him, grateful for the little lesson, but it wasn't what she was going to ask.  Then she motioned around the room at the others, and then at herself and raised her eyebrows once more, indicating the question.  Goku got it.

            "Oh, the uniforms?  Well, that's kinda required.  Mostly because of the materials, not to mention it's better than what people normally wear." Goku explained.  "What I'm wearing, along with Xander, is the basic human uniform.  It's called the Model Five.  And it is basically what you see.  The shirt, or basic tank top is made out of a near indestructible polymer based material, woven in such a way that nothing short of directed star fire, or something worse or more powerful could smudge it, let alone tear or vaporize it.  The pants are styled for freedom of movement when fighting, as well as made of the same material, yet their weave isn't quite as strong as the shirts.  The boxers, also made out of a similar but stronger material, are pretty much just that, boxers.  The boots are weighted, and they also have a bit of technology in them that can only be activated in the Compound.  When in training, the boots use a variation of graviton-manipulation principle.  What that means is, that normally these boots weigh about four to ten kilos, when out on the gym floor, or in a training room, depending on your regimen, they may end up weighing more than twelve tons."

            Goku paused, letting them absorb that much information.  After several moments total silence, not to mention enormous relief pouring off of Willow, who was just wearing some simple rain boot style boots, Goku continued.  "And finally there's the jacket.  It is made out of the strongest woven material that absolutely anybody knows about.  I honestly don't think that, short of the Powers or some other thing just simply erasing them from existence, anything could destroy one of these jackets.  But it's more than just the material.  It's multi-layered and even magically enchanted for various…things.  I don't really know them all, since I don't know if it's possible for someone to go through them all.  Of the ones I do know, and appreciate the most, the jackets are self-cleaning, they can't stain, tear, rip, or even get scuffed.  They can survive bombs, guns, and nuclear explosions at point blank and everything in between and beyond.  And, if it's possible, they can kind of protect anyone behind you, or that you're holding.  If you're like me, you might one day really appreciate that little aspect.  Oh, one last thing, the 'shoulder pads'?  They're also graviton-enhancers.  Meaning that the jacket can weigh just as much as the boots, and sometimes even more."

            "This is what you two will be wearing for the next six weeks.  Don't worry about washing, you can wear these things for a hundred days straight, not bathe, and even let a corpse wear it for its funeral and they'll still be fresh.  I only got you two backups incase our training actually does ruin them.  By the way, that is a guarantee that you will need those backups, and maybe several more.  As for Willow, she's a witch and she's going to be studying under two of the four most powerful magic-users in the Multi-verse, so chances are even greater that she's going to be blowing stuff, and at times probably even herself, up so she will most definitely be requiring almost all of her backups.  Oh, and her jumpsuit as well as the leotard underwear are made out of the same material as the jackets, minus the training weights and magical enhancements.  Just thought I'd let you know that so you'll have the proper response when you all see her again this afternoon around Lunch, which by the way, is not for at least ten hours, maybe more if you aren't doing some things right."

            "To begin with, we'll have a general overview of your schedules and then you'll divide up.  Giles, I managed to pull some strings, and you've got your own gym.  Trust me, you'll use it.  As I said last night, Buffy and Xander are with me, and Willow will transit over to the 'Mage Tower'.  It's the big spire with a sphere on top.  It's the most isolated building in the universe, so that's why all of the magic users are trained there.  Initially trained anyway.  Those that reach a certain level of control can train anywhere the hell they please.  So, before your questions, let's just go, and yes Buffy, I'll be with you this time," Goku allayed as he noticed the brief show of mistrust flicker across her features.  The Slayer just nodded and waited with the others by the MTC.

            Yet when Goku came up behind them all, he just stood and stared at Buffy.  At her returning stare, he exclaimed, "Look, I am not going to be going everywhere you are going every time you go through one of these.  The sooner that you all learn how to use them, the better.  I've already showed you how to basically operate it.  Now, we're going to here," and he held out his open Global with the coordinates highlighted.

            Buffy nodded and stepped forward and placed her right hand on the black plate, she felt a small tingle in the back of her head and saw a green line run down the black plate, scanning her palm, or DNA, or finger prints or whatever.  Then the circle began to glow, and in a calm clear, and rather loud voice, Buffy shouted the coordinates.  "Main Gym!  2nd floor!  Private Training Area Section 41: Alpha!  Authorization…uh, Goku!"

            Behind her, Goku groaned and put his hand over his eyes.  She might have gotten the authorization wrong, but it didn't really matter since about five seconds after she finished talking, a large holographic, obviously holographic due to it's transparency and the occasional flicker of static, eye appeared that stared at each of them in turn.  Buffy didn't remove her hand, too afraid to move.  After it had looked at each of the fighters, Goku shrugging at it when it turned to him, it just "blinked" a couple times, or rather it was covered with static for the same amount of time that a blink lasts, and then it disappeared and the circle glowed brighter with it's destination chosen.

            Buffy was about to say how many would be traveling, but Goku came up and grasped her shoulder, pulling her away from the plate and said, "Never mind now.  The authorization was your codename.  From here on in, that's all the authorization you'll need, unless you're somewhere you aren't supposed to be, say like the nuclear reactor that runs the power to this building."

            "Oh," Buffy muttered sarcastically, "thanks for the heads up by the way."

            "You're welcome," Goku responded, stepping through, followed by Xander, Giles, and Willow, who gave her a sympathetic look before she stepped through also.  Shrugging, and just accepting that it was going to be one of those days, Buffy followed her friends and trainer.

            When they all came out on the other side, it was hard for any of them to be impressed.  The room was little more than four equidistant domed lights, the MTC, and them.  The rest of the room was just solid gray walls.  It was like being on the inside of a matchbox, except there's no sliding out of it.  The floor at least was padded, enough to cushion light blows, and to protect the floor from cracking or breaking or whatever, while the walls and ceiling just looked like plaster, they all suspected that it was reinforced with a force field, thereby making it even tougher than reinforced steel.

            "OK, I'll bite, where are we?" Buffy asked the trainer.

            Goku just shrugged and turned to face the black, and brown in Giles' case, clad group.  "This is our personal training room.  We meet here first, every morning, and we meet here everyday right after lunch, and we meet here every evening just before you turn in, for what I like to call our "late night sessions".  You are allowed to come here on your own, provided you've got nothing to do.  As much as you all do have to do, there will be instances of free time, where you can either choose to lay around and get lazy, or you could get in a few more training hours.  That I'll leave up to you.  This first week, and maybe next week, you will have no free time.  Understood?"

            There were silent nods of acceptance from the four.  Not liking the silence, Goku asked, "Questions, comments?"  Willow raised her hand, smiling at the hilarity of it, Goku nodded at her.  "Uh, what do we do?" she asked like it was an obvious question but everybody had avoided answering it for that simple reason.

            "Well, today, I'm going to show you some basic moves.  Basic for me anyway.  By the time we're finished you'll be able to do it as well, but for right now I'll only be demonstrating, and then we'll divvy up, 'kay?" Goku answered, moving to the center of the room.

            "Divvy up?" Buffy asked, confused.

            "Well I told you that you and Xander would train under me, and Giles and Willow would be trained elsewhere.  But I'm not planning on doing that for at least another hour or so, so let me get started with the demonstrating, and then I can let Willow go and give Giles his surprise." Goku explained.

            Buffy just shrugged, and the others stood patiently by, waiting for the lightshow to begin.  They didn't wait long as Goku immediately transformed into a Super Saiyan.  Buffy as immediately felt the pangs in her gut and rubbed it sympathetically, but managed to keep her breakfast down.  Goku then began to levitate until he was in the exact center of the room.  He stayed there for a moment or two, in a mid-air horse stance, before beginning his routine.

            Without moving any other molecule of his body, he began punching the air with his left fist, so fast and so many times that they could all feel the breeze from the punches and saw it as little more than lines of movement and a slight blur from his arm.  After maybe a half a minute, where he executed no less than one hundred flawless straight-arm punches, he switched arms and proceeded for the rest of the minute with that arm in the same fashion.

            Without losing a beat, when he finished with his right arm, his left arm rejoined the exercise and he suddenly resembled a statue of Sheeva, that six-armed Hindu god of war or whatever.  His punches and strikes took on more intricate patterns until everyone stared at him in awe and amazement.  His entire body was straight and stiller than a statue's frame as his arms were little more than blurs and lines of movement, which was one of the most amazing things that Buffy and Giles saw about the man before them.

            After another minute of arm and punch exercises, Goku suddenly stopped moving completely.  The sudden shift startled the two that had become hypnotized by his "demonstration".  Buffy just narrowed her eyes in curiosity at what would happen next while Giles continued to stare in amazement.  The Super Saiyan smiled as he prepared his next trick, and when he suddenly flew straight at them with little more warning than that, Buffy reacted on instinct, diving to knock Willow and Xander out of the way, and Giles dove the other way.  The other two teenagers yelled at the surprise move before everyone realized that Goku had just flown straight into the wall behind them, only to rebound off of it and then onto the opposite wall.  From there he ricocheted around the room at random, and at some points faster than any eye could follow.  While he was mid-air at some points he would shoot off several more punches, strikes, or kicks, all at speeds that made it look like little more than movement lines.

            Finally, apparently having finished his warm up for the day, Goku reappeared in the middle of the room, still a few feet from the ground, and waited for the others to get back on their feet.  Once they were, he returned to normal and then dropped the rest of the way to the ground, and walked up to them.  "Well?" he asked when he got to them.

            They all stared at him in disbelief.  "You-you're saying that we'll be able to do…_all_ of that?!!  All of us?" Buffy stuttered.  Goku just nodded.

            "All right!" Xander exclaimed.  "Dead boy, eat your heart out!"

            "Dead boy?" Goku asked, amused but mostly confused.

            "Uh, he means Angel." Buffy explained.  "Uh, he's sort of my boyfriend, and sometimes he helps me out on patrol and fighting the really big nasties.  He's also a vampire.  But with a soul, so that, uh…kinda makes him good,…I guess."

            Goku grimaced at the mention of Buffy's boyfriend, and he seemed to be contemplating some major issue that he really didn't want to talk about.  So finally he just shrugged his shoulders and muttered, "Oh, what the hell…"

            Goku turned to look directly at Buffy and caught her eye.  Looking straight at her, and her him, he said as calmly as one could, "Buffy, the Council knows about Angel.  And they have kind of set up a rule about him with you.  For a _very_ good reason I might add.  Nobody has any problem with you dating or seeing Angel, and everybody kind of agrees that you deserve to be happy, but there is a kind of major problem with _Angel_ being happy."

            Growing concerned, not to mention a little ticked that yet another Council were setting up rules for her to live by, Buffy asked, "What do you mean?"

            Goku sighed.  He knew this would be hard, but he never expected it to be _this_ hard.  Plus he never expected to actually like his new charges so quickly.  It usually took him at least three weeks before he developed any sort of comradery with his trainees.  Swallowing his fear, he explained to Buffy the finer details of Angel's curse.

            "Buffy, Angel was one of the worst vampires in the history of vampires, on every world.  Believe me, Angelus, what Angel was called when he was a regular vampire, was one of the meanest, toughest, and most evil of the vampires of the middle ages.  Then, the Romany Gypsies cursed Angelus with his soul.  They did it quite simply so that he would suffer throughout eternity for the few crimes that he had committed against them.  Not that they were exactly minor crimes.  Anyway, there's a loophole on the curse.  If Angel ever stops suffering for even a moment, if he has so much as a single moment of pure happiness, then his suffering will stop forever.  He will lose his soul and return to being that monster Angelus."

            "Wait a minute, you mean that Angel would turn evil?" Willow naively asked.

            Goku nodded and looked Buffy in the eye.  Finally she asked the question that he was waiting for her to ask.  "What exactly do you mean by, 'moment of pure happiness'?"

            Goku grinned roguishly and answered rather cryptically, "Well, the same moment of pure happiness that you and Willow had this morning in the shower would suffice, if you catch my drift."  She did.

            "So you mean…" Buffy stared at the dark-haired Saiyan.

            "The rules about your relationship between you and Angel apply purely and only to how it might affect this loophole in the curse.  For him, it means no 'happy' or 'ecstasy' drugs.  For both of you, it means no marriage and no sex.  For you, it means no sex.  That about covers the rules." Goku fully explained.

            "Oh," Buffy muttered, trying to absorb this information.

            Everyone was rather quiet, learning that an ally and friend had the potential to turn against them.  Though for one of them it was the possibility of a dream come true, he did not want it to come at the cost of Buffy's happiness, not to mention all of the damage that the demon Angelus could do to them.  All the more reason to get stronger, faster, and more powerful, Xander decided.  Xander's eyes shown with fire as he stood taller and turned to Goku, breaking the mood of silence and depression.

            "Well OK, Deadboy doesn't get any, that's perfectly fine with me.  And he's not evil right now, and probably just coming in from patrol or whatever.  Now we're here for a reason, so I say that we get to it and make sure that if on the ever unlikeliness that it does happen that we'll be able to all handle ourselves.  All right?" Xander asked the question generally, but it might as well have been a direct statement to Buffy.

            She nodded and turned to Goku, the same fire in Xander's eyes reflected in her own.  "Let's do it." She said fiercely.  And they did.

            Smiling, Goku turned their attention back to the training.  "All right then.  Now that the ugly stuff is out of the way, how about we get to the actual training." He said.  "OK, first thing to note; we will meet here every morning, at this time.  Here I will give all of you a few moves that you will practice for whatever time we have here together before Witch and Watcher go to their own areas, and the rest of us work more on the fighting.  I'll just be showing you a couple of basic moves, just to get you started, and then you will practice that move until you can do it, and do it as I tell you to do it.  Understood?"

            Willow raised her hand.  "Yeah Will?" Goku singled her out immediately.  "_Witch _and _Watcher_?" she asked, confused.  Goku grinned and nodded.  "Until you get promoted anyway.  As for Giles' codename, well, that was kind of the simplest and most obvious name for him, don't you think?  Besides, you guys need to get used to having these codenames, so for that purpose, when we are training, I'll be calling you by those names."

            "What's yours?" Buffy asked out of the blue.

            Goku shrugged, like he didn't really care about it and answered, "_Saiyaman_."

            He waited for the usual wisecracks and jokes at his expense of having to use that stupid name that his great grand uncle Gohan had come up for himself when he went through the whole "superhero" phase.  At least he didn't have to wear that dorky outfit or try the even dumber choreography that for some bizarre reason the half-Saiyan had found "cool".

            Yet out of all the responses he had gotten from people hearing his codename, he had never before witnessed the thoughtful poses that all of them shared right now.  Finally the tension was broke when Buffy made her comments.

            "Makes sense," she said, flooring him with shock (not literally), "I mean it kinda does.  Your, or rather your ancestors race were called Saiyans, so its kinda like you're embodying their title.  I mean, what if their world was called Saya or something like that, and you're Saiyaman.  It's kinda cool, like there would ever be an Earthman kinda superhero or something like that, depending on who and what he was I'd think that he'd be really cool himself.  With me?"

            "Uhhh…" was all Goku could say.

            Willow easily picked up the slack.  "Yeah, I mean, sure it sounds kinda tacky and like a five year old picked it out, but…"

            "Actually he was sixteen," Goku muttered, barely loud enough for them to hear, let alone for them to understand.

            Willow continued as though he hadn't said anything, "But it all depends on what you do and what you can do.  I think that we've seen a lot already of what you can do, and I figure you wouldn't be here teaching for Good if you didn't do the right things and stuff back home, and besides, you should see some of the comic book heroes that our world comes up with.  _Arach-kid, Judge Dredd, Captain Fantastic, the Four Furies, _and worst of all, _Supreme Eagle: America's greatest hero, fighter of truth, justice, and the American way_.  I mean, it's borderline, if not already a mile beyond the pathetic line!" Willow ranted.

            "Uh, Willow, maybe it might not be a good time to mention it, but on some worlds, and only the Powers know how, that what is fiction like comics and TV and books on some worlds, is actually history and real life for others on the opposite end of the spectrum." Goku interrupted.

            Looking confused, Xander asked, "So you're saying that on some other world, our lives and "adventures" (his fingers doing the quoting as he said the word) with Buffy might actually be a TV show on another world?  And the me on that world would actually be a rich and famous actor?"  Goku just shrugged, saying that it was up to fate and destiny and all that crap.

            "I was actually referring to the world that we've made contact to where _Judge Dredd_ is very real and is the chief commissioner for the Judges, or the police actually.  And I've had the opportunity to see some of the fictions about him and his world.  My favorite was actually a movie that Sylvester Stallone played as Dredd.  He came pretty close, but the real Dredd cusses more and is not involved with anyone, nor would he want to be." Goku told them.

            At their confused looks, he wondered what the problem was.  "What?" he asked.  Buffy just shook her head, mimicking his sympathetic look that he kept giving her yesterday.  "I saw that movie, Arnold Schwartzeneger played Dredd.  Sly played in "Last Action Hero" the year before.  Keep up on current events Goku."

            The one eighth Saiyan just grimaced and shook his head in disbelief.  "They're current events for your world Buffy, not every other single universe that we have access to.  And we actually haven't had a chance to open up trade agreements with your world since you are the first fighters _from_ your world here.  OK?" he said with complete sarcasm.

            Looking chastised, Buffy just muttered "Oh," before Goku decided to get started before they got anymore distracted than they already were.

            "All right!" getting their attention, Goku returned to the center of the room and indicated they should join him.  "Here's what you're going to be doing for the next hour." Goku then moved into a casual modified horse stance, holding his arms at the ready by his sides.  Then with his right hand, he punched the air so that his arm was straight out.  Then he stood straight again.

            "So get started," he said with a grin.

            They all stared in complete disbelief at him.  Even Giles had his mouth hanging open in shock.  "You've got to be kidding me," Buffy stated in mild shock.  When Goku just shook his head, still grinning, Buffy closed her eyes and took deep breaths, counting to ten.  When she was calm she took a step to Goku and looked him in the eye.  "When you said you were going to be teaching us the basics, I didn't think it would be that basic." Buffy told him with a scowl.

            Goku continued grinning, if possible it was actually broadening, and stood a little taller over the short blonde, and then answered her, "For the next hour Buffy.  Yet since you seem to think that it's so easy, I want you to do at least one hundred of those punches, _perfectly_, in the next ten minutes.  I'll even spot you five minutes to learn how to do it perfectly."

            Buffy realized that she'd been had when she heard that.  She would have commented, but fear that he'd increase the punishment just because.  "Fine," she hissed glaring him down off his high horse.  She turned and glared at the others, and they all knew that they'd be right there with her.

            Getting back to her place in the lineup, Buffy positioned herself identically to what Goku had shown them, and then taking a deep breath she punched the air so that her right arm was straight out, and then quickly withdrew her arm to her side and then punched the air again.  She kept a steady pace, to the near amazement of everyone in there, save Goku.  Five minutes along, she had counted her punches to at least fifty-nine and she showed absolutely no signs of slowing.

            Goku cleared his throat, causing Buffy to pause for a moment to look at him.  He glanced at all the others and they immediately got into variations of a similar stance.  He sighed.  Turning to Buffy, "Start over.  Count it on the withdrawal and when you get to one hundred, ten minutes or not, start helping me help them.  I've got a lot of work to do."  Buffy nodded and started counting and punching all over again.  It took her seven minutes to finish.

            Of the other three humans, Giles was the closest, yet he was still far from perfect, Goku started with him.  He caught the hints quickly and was soon moving as well as Buffy.  He had to stop at fifty to catch his breath, and then started over.  Xander was the next to worst, but he also caught on quick, plus he didn't need to pause every fifty or so.  Willow was the worst, completely unused to physical exertion like this, and Goku was glad that Buffy had finished to help him with her.  It took a lot of understanding on both their parts, not to mention a small booster speech from Buffy, but soon all three were doing as well as Buffy could.  Once they had all done at least one hundred each, without pause, Goku decided to move on to the next move.  The other arm.

            And so it went for the whole hour.  Buffy often finishing early with however many exercises Goku told them to do and helping teach Willow the finer little tricks she had learned.  By the time that Giles and Willow were scheduled to leave, they had just finished with their third set with the left arm.

            "All right, it's about time for you to go Willow, but before we split up I just want to run through a quick stretching routine that I want all of you to do before you work out, no matter what.  Even if it's a fight.  It's a nearly perfected technique so that you have absolutely no soreness, save what is caused by injury, the next morning and so your muscles can correctly grow." Goku explained.  He then went through the stretching technique himself, pointing out the finer points as Buffy perfectly mirrored him and the others struggled along.  Willow actually enjoyed the stretching, as much as it hurt, she could feel her muscles loosening up allowing her a slight sense of relaxation.

            After they were done, a beeping sound was heard, and Goku stopped everything to pull out his Global and open it.  It was the source of beeping, and when he opened it up a voice that spoke in nothing resembling English came from it, but they all still understood it.  "Goku!  Witch is scheduled for her training period at the Mage Tower in fifteen minutes, and we have the "item" that you requested for Watcher."

            Goku grinned and nodded and answered to whoever it was, "Great.  Set the coordinates for her, and transport the "item" in.  Thanks a bunch Barf!"  Everyone started at the name, mostly because of what the name meant in English, second because it was the name that he had asked 'Ralph' about, the octopus thing that had gotten them their supplies and training uniforms yesterday.  Nobody said anything though, as the MTC immediately started glowing and there was a large flash of light and a large sheathed covered broadsword appeared just above Goku's head.  He easily caught it as it fell.

            "See you this afternoon Willow." Goku grinned at her.  At seeing her hesitation, Goku comforted her, "Don't worry Willow.  Just do what you feel is right, and don't piss anybody off.  Don't worry, I have confidence in you and so does everyone else here.  I'm sure that you'll do just fine."

            Smiling at the pep talk, Willow nodded and went over to the MTC.  She turned around to face everybody just before entering the glowing red portal.  She smiled shyly, as Willow does, waves and says to everyone, "Wish me luck!"  Then she faced the portal, silently gulped to herself and then stepped through, the echoes of everyone's "Good Luck!" at her back.  And then she was gone.

            Once Willow was gone and the red circle had stopped glowing, Buffy began to feel a cold and very unpleasant feeling crawl up from her gut.  Her best friend, her only _real_ girl friend (And you all know what I mean!) had only been gone for a single second and she was already missing her so much that it hurt.  Here they were in a completely unknown situation, in a completely unknown place with no knowledge of how they got there, nor how to get home, and told that they were going to be half-killed in their training to be strong enough to fight demons and monsters that she never wanted to face in the first place!  And how was she supposed to _protect_ Willow if she couldn't be _with_ Willow?

            Buffy then noticed that both Goku and Xander had noticed the expression on her face, which the moment Willow stepped through the portal had been one of pain and loss and intense worry.  She noticed that Xander just grinned while Goku cocked an eyebrow at her.  She glared at the both of them equally, Xander backing down first from experience, and then Goku shortly learning that in such cases nobody but Buffy ever won.

            Grateful that he was moving on, Buffy turned her full attention to Goku and the sword that had appeared in his hands, or close enough to them, or above them.  'God, one minute without Wills and I'm already resorting to 'babble mode', Buffy mused to herself.

            Goku turned to Giles, grabbing the older Watcher's attention (physically older than everyone else, but Goku is actually chronologically older).  Presenting the Englishman the sword, Goku introduced Giles to his new partner, "Giles, allow me to present your 'surprise' that I've been telling you about.  This is a mystical blade, one of maybe fifty made in total.  The Compound didn't make it or its counterparts; rather we discovered them on various worlds.  The blade's name is '_Night Blade_'.  You'll understand when you draw the blade.  It's powers, as I've been told and understand it, have mostly to do with the aspects of the night and darkness, or rather lack of light.  Nothing evil or anything like that.  Actually that may be absolutely nothing close to what it does or is.  Only the wielder can ever know all of its secrets, and only if the blade lets the wielder know them all."

            Giles raised an eyebrow, not unlike any Vulcan.  "'If the _blade lets_ the _wielder_ know them'?" he repeated as a question.

            Goku, grinning like Sylvester with Tweety in his mouth, just nodded and explained.  "All of the 'Blade' swords are sentient.  Each has its own name, its own personality, powers, and abilities.  At last count, about thirty or less of the Blades had been claimed and are being used.  Now, with you, I think that makes an even thirty or thirty-one."

            Giles just stared at the silk wrapped sword being held before him.  It was completely wrapped in an undecorated black silk cloth, so Giles had no clue, aside from the length, as to what the '_Blade_' looked like.  "If its sentient, does that mean that it chooses its wielder, or that it just gets assigned like so many weapons?" Giles asked out of the blue, with just a hint of anger in the undercurrent of his voice.

            Goku's grin lessened to one more suited to one discussing something that he really hated, but still needed to discuss in good spirits.  "All of the '_Blades_' are given a choice and are asked when they wish to take on a wielder, and yes it is the Blade that takes on the wielder.  When they say they are ready, though none of them actually talk, they are taken from the pocket dimension they are kept in and then one of us trainers requisitions for any available one and that's what I did.  _Night Blade_ here had passed up on three candidates before you, and yes the swords can choose to reject certain people that it does not allow to hold it, and if that happens, usually the Blade tells us which of the other Blades would best be suited to that warrior.  I'm hoping that I don't have to go back, because it's literal hell getting through the paperwork to properly requisition one of these guys, though I am told that some of the Blade's personalities are more female in characteristics."

            Seeing that Giles was still hesitating, Goku practically forced the wrapped weapon into his hands.  "Come on Giles, as big a responsibility as it sounds, the Blades were made first and foremost to fight evil.  Every single one of them.  And I'd like you to be the one who unwraps it.  The whole 'impression' thing and all that." Goku reasoned.

            Finally Giles relented and took the silk cloth wrapped sword.  Slowly, almost reverently, Giles unwrapped the Blade.  The hilt was the first to be uncovered.  Giles paused in his unveiling to study it.  The bottom of the sword was a large circle, about twice as big as an American half-dollar coin, and at least an inch thick, solid black, and a strange and undoubtedly unique symbol etched into both "faces".  The hilt itself seemed to be made of an ancient ivory that had once had much use.  Etched into the ivory at the four corners of it (i.e. front, back, left side, and right side) were nearly indecipherable Latin runes.  Studying them closely, Giles could read them and translated them automatically.

            "**_Blade of the Night_**"

            "**_Singer of Right_**"

            "**_Force of Aid_**"

            "**_Truth of the Mind_**"

            "Fascinating…" the Librarian muttered as he realized that this was truly a weapon for good, in fact deserving to belong only in a Knight's hand.  Unwrapping more, the guard was revealed and then the beginnings of the sheath.  The guard was just simply a piece of metal about six inches long, sticking evenly out two inches from the hilt and the blade made of the same solid black metal as the bottom of it.  It ran even with the blade and was just as thick as the "coin" at the bottom and held a few design tweaks here and there, yet nothing noticeable or outlandish in any sense.

            The sheath, as it was revealed slowly by Giles' careful removing of the gift cloth, was a soft light brown leather with a shoulder strap already in place, and also made out of the soft leather.  There were two rings of gold on the sheath, one two inches from the mouth of the sheath, and another over four inches from the tip.

            Giles was absolutely fascinated by the artifact he now held.  Even if he had not been told so, he felt that this was a true weapon a sword meant to be used and not kept locked behind some glass case in a museum, forgotten.  No, this was meant to be used.  For what, Giles had little idea, but he also felt that he would find out.  Someday.

            Going with instinct rather than any outside urging, Giles took the mouth of the sheath just beneath the top gold ring with his left hand and slowly, almost reverently once again, placed his right hand around the hilt of the Blade.  Taking a deep breath, preparing for the Blade to shock him or something to indicate that it wanted another master, or wielder, he slowly tightened his grip.  Then he pulled, and to his utter amazement, it slid out almost fluidly and did not shock him or seem to tell anyone that he was not the right wielder of such a magnificent weapon.

            Once the mystical Blade was out, it cut the air as Giles held it above his head, kinda like King Arthur when he pulled out Excalibur, Buffy mused.  She noticed that Goku was openly grinning at this, and she imagined that Night Blade must have chosen its new wielder.

            As the Watcher held Night Blade above him, like some actor's imitation of King Arthur, Giles began to feel something.  It was a strange and new feeling, and definitely not unpleasant, but it was not exactly ecstasy.  It felt more like a part of him that he had never been totally aware of was suddenly opening up and attaching itself to the sword that he held above him.  Then, like a shock, he realized what part of him that was.  He had given it a name a long time ago.  In his rebellious college days.  _Ripper_.

            Yet his control was not slipping, rather it was intensifying and increasing.  As though the Blade had taken the rage that was Ripper, his darker half, straight out of him and kept it as its own.  And then, in place of Ripper, the Blade gave something back to Giles, a piece of itself.  Part of its power and the ability, the capacity to understand the Blade.  And Giles now knew what the Blade's power was.

            Shaking himself out of the reverie he had been drawn into, Giles lowered the sword and stared at the actual blade part of it.  It was just under four feet long, more than four inches wide at the base, shortening to just over three inches near the tip, where it suddenly went into a very sharpened point.  It was solid black, but not as though it were absorbing all the light in the room, rather a polished almost glassy solid black.  Giles realized that the sword was made out of obsidian, volcanic glass.  Yet the way that this sword was crafted, not to mention the fact that it was actually supposed to be used, defied all laws of logic and physics.  There had to be very strong magics at work for it to not crack or break during a battle, that or it had to be some of the strongest obsidian that had ever existed and forged in blazes hotter than the core of Earth's sun.  For all Giles knew right now, it could have been both.

            Nodding in approval all of a sudden, Giles sheathed the Blade and made to place it over his jacket on his back.  Goku stopped him.  "Take your jacket off first," he said.  At Giles' skeptical look, Goku gave him a look that said (as he said it aloud as well), "Trust me."  Giles then handed the sheath back to Goku, who held it by the strap while the Watcher removed his brown leather jacket, which he now realized matched the sheath and strap of the Blade.  He handed the jacket to Buffy, who held it as Giles took back the sheath and then looped it over his head so that he could draw the blade with his right hand, without having to go over his left shoulder.

            "Now what?" Giles asked the trainer.

            Goku indicated the jacket, and Buffy handed it over.  Goku then handed it to Giles who noticed for the first time the slits in the back.  One just beneath the right shoulder, and another opposite it on the lower left portion of it.  "I see," Giles commented before slipping the jacket back on.  Goku then helped in getting the sheath to properly stick out of both ends.  It was a nice effect.

            "So, uh, now what?" Xander asked, now that the dramatics were out of the way.

            Goku turned to him and answered, "Now the three of us head to the gym and get you two started on your strength and endurance training.  Giles stays here to start bonding with his new weapon.  And before either of you ask, I'm only following the instructions that go with the Blades.  Giles, who is now the wielder, has to have time to learn how to use the Night Blade, not to mention its powers, which only he can do.  Meaning, we can't be here to interrupt or "help"."

            "Oh," Buffy muttered before turning to Giles, like she was going to give him a hug.

            "It's all right Buffy, I'll be fine.  Trust Goku and try not to wear him out, all right?" Giles comforted his charge.

            At the statement Goku openly grinned and barked out a single laugh.  When they turned to glare at him he continued to grin and explained, "Giles, _I _will not be the one to be worn out today.  If anything, _Buffy_ will be lucky to be standing long enough to step through the MTC back to your apartment."  Xander and Buffy both gulped and began to sweat in buckets.  Giles just mirrored Goku's grin.

            "Well, off with you then.  I trust that you all have a very full schedule." Giles said, ushering them out.

            "Oh, we do," Goku added, dragging the two teenagers by the scruffs of their necks, "I'll be by later to bring you out for lunch, which we'll all be sharing at the Movable Mess.  I'll be gentle."  He added softly to the teens in his hands, and then a second later, the three young (looking) people were gone from the private gym and suddenly someplace else.

            When Willow appeared in the infamous "Mage Tower", one of the things that she had not been at all expecting was to end up in a place that was furnished and looked exactly like her dentist's office waiting area.  Yet that was where she ended up, with the only obvious exits being a closed secretary's window, and the MTC minus the black panel that activated them.

            "Uh, am I in the right place?" Willow asked nervously to the empty room.  Getting no immediate or vocal answer, Willow nervously decided that she had to wait.  So she sat down on the couch, which uncharacteristic of the furniture she had seen so far, did not conform to her body, but rather remained more rigid than a desktop.  Thing was, it looked exactly like all the other "leather" material furniture.

            Willow sat uncomfortably for several minutes before she began to think about where she had ended up, where she was supposed to be, and what she was there for.  Number one, she was in a waiting area designed to look and be comfortable, yet was not.  Number two, she was supposed to be in the Mage Tower, training building for all of those warriors in this tournament that use magic and so forth.  And three, she was there to be trained in the use of magic.  Logical deduction of all past "high wizards" that were to receive a new student or such, always, _always_ tested them with something that could only be solved with A) their wits, B) their brains, and C) magic.  And of course the infamous and evil D) All of the above.

            Willow decided to skip A and B and went straight for C and D.  Doing as Amy had taught her, Willow focused her thoughts inward and cast the simple scrying spell that was the only one she knew.  Immediately she saw three things; the entire room was an illusion, there was a door, a real human door just next to the window, and there was a sign above the door with a clock underneath the word EXIT.  The clock she surmised was how long she had been in there.  Then she turned her attention to the MTC and was briefly blinded by what she saw there.  Apparently the MTC was a controlled singularity, aka black hole/wormhole.  The important thing though was she could see the black panel that controlled the MTC.  Unfortunately it was on the opposite side of the room from the Red circle.

            Quickly realizing that as soon as her hand left the panel for the MTC it would close, Willow tried to think of a way to keep the portal open long enough for her to race through it from across the room.  She quickly came to it as she went over the list of spells that Amy and her family had taught her.  A glamour.  Of herself, and the illusion could hold the portal open by sticking its arm through like Goku had done.

            Checking the clock and surprised to see that she had already been in the waiting room for ten minutes, Willow hastily gathered the energy she would require for a full glamour double of herself.  It was formed, perfectly, within five minutes.  When Willow stood, she was surprised that the Glamour just stared at her, like a mirror, rather than a robot like she had expected.

            Rather than debate on it right now, Willow mentally commanded the glamour to go over and wait by the MTC and when it opened, to stick its arms through.  She also added on as an after thought for it to follow her _after_ she went through the portal.  She went immediately to where she felt the MTC control panel was and then placed her palm flat against it and said in as clear a voice as she could muster, "Uh…Mage Tower!  Arch Mage's Private Office, uh…Authorization Witch-in-training!  One…and a half?"

            Immediately the red circle started to glow and the glamour put both her arms through it.  When she did, the energy of the spell and the energy of the portal began to react slightly, causing the areas directly around the glamour's arms in the portal to glow in white rings.  Willow raced as fast as she could from that side of the room to the portal, only to have every single piece of furniture try to get in her way.  She jumped on the table, and not entirely trusting the suddenly sturdy looking couch, she jumped over the couch onto the back of one of the chairs putting one of her feet on the top of it and leaning in with most of her weight, caused the chair to tip over backwards thereby allowing the young redhead to leap from there the rest of the way into the still open portal.

            '_Good thing that Xander likes Dungeons & Dragons.  I don't think I could have expected all that if not for having him have me read all of the wizard's tasks and battle stories to him.'_ Willow thought just as she and her glamour came through the portal.

            When she landed in a tumble with her more than solid double, Willow caught a glimpse of the office she had arrived in before seeing the being sat behind the large desk before said being grabbed her attention with two words.  "Not bad."

            Of what she did see of the office, it was rather typical of what anyone might've expected of a powerful wizard or witch's private lair.  It was large and domelike, which seemed to be the primary theme of the interior of every room in this place.  Aside from the large steel/metal desk and the impressive throne-like reclining chair behind it, there were numerous podiums scattered about, some perhaps decorations, most of the things looked like they were more a part of some magical or scientific experiment.  And you can't have an inner sanctum without flying books.  Or a complete multi-colored chemistry set.  Yet this inner sanctum lacked both.

            Just a pleasant middle-aged (appearing) woman in a long flowing green robe with red highlights.  She had a stopwatch or an olden pocket watch in her hand and was staring at the Willows on her floor.  She repeated her statement to fully grab Willow's, the real one's, attention.  "Not bad Willow, not bad at all."

            Standing up slowly, mostly to make sure nothing would attack her, but also to indicate respect for the obvious higher ranking individual seated before her, Willow hastily dismissed the glamour version of herself and gulped nervously before asking the woman, "Uh, if I may ask…not bad what?"

            The older woman, who could tell by how much older what with the whole Immortality deal, smiled sweetly and indicated the space in front of her desk, and as she did a chair materialized there.  Willow suppressed the squeal of surprise that had risen in her throat and nodded her thanks to the Arch Mage before taking the seat quite literally made for her.

            With little more than that, the Arch Mage launched into her explanation.  "Not bad with your first test Willow.  Most magic users that are sent into the waiting room end up going through the maze at least twice before even trying the portal.  And then the fastest that anyone ever could get from the pad to the portal was two seconds, and that was with casting a speed spell before doing so.  Very clever creating a glamour to hold the portal open while you made it from the pad to the other side.  Yes.  Very clever."

            As Willow was flushing with the praise, something suddenly occurred to her.  She didn't quite know what made her think of it, but when she did, she immediately acted on it.  She once again cast the scrying spell and she immediately saw that the older witch was reading her mind, as well as holding her immobile to the chair.  Suppressing her nervousness, Willow took calming breaths and thought of an old poem that she and Xander had helped Buffy to memorize for English class last year.

            _'Oh Captain my Captain…'_ she repeated over and over as loud as she could in her own head.  Focusing as hard on the words as she could, she barely heard the woman before her say something.

            Losing her concentration, Willow tried to refocus her attention to what the elder witch had asked.  "Huh?  Sorry, what?" Willow stuttered.  "I asked you, young _Witch_, do you feel me in your mind?"

            Willow almost lost her focus again, and then she remembered the one thing that she could do better than all of the Scoobies.  Multi-task.  Reciting the poem, along with at least several strands of code that she had memorized as access codes for various computers and computer systems around the Sunnydale area, Willow answered in a calm tone, "I'm not sure I understand what you mean?"

            Suddenly the other woman smiled brightly.  "Scoobies?" she asked with a hint of a laugh.  Willow arched an eyebrow, while internally she fought down panic.  '_They have information about us from the Powers.  The Powers knew we called our group the Scoobies, and she wants me to slip so she can read more from my mind.  We'll two can play at that.'_

            "Can you now?" the mage asked.

            Taking a lesson from Buffy in intimidating looks, Willow did her teacher proud as she smirked evilly at the Arch Mage.  She suddenly began to think in no less than seven different directions at once, four in various virus codes that she had written herself, another two in the poem at different paces, and maybe five more in just random words that she normally saved for babble mode.  The strain of trying to make sense of all of the jargon suddenly running though the young hacker's head quickly became obvious to anyone looking at the Arch Mage.  Checking the scrying spell, Willow saw that the Arch Mage had disengaged the mind probe, or whatever it had been.

            "Like I said, clever." The elder witch repeated, rubbing her temples slightly and sitting a little straighter.  Willow quickly realized what she had done and who she had done it to and quickly slipped back to the nervous teenage girl that was in a place that was way, way, **way** over her head.

            "Oh!  I'm so sorry, I-I-I didn't mean to do anything wrong, I-I just kind of reacted.  It was like an instinct when I saw that you were reading my mind, and I only learned that scrying spell two weeks ago and…" Willow babbled.

            "You learned _that_ spell just two weeks ago!?" the Arch Mage interrupted with a shout.

            Suddenly afraid that she had done something seriously wrong, Willow shrunk back into her seat and meekly nodded, too terrified to give any other response.  The Arch Mage, seeing her mistake quickly dispelled all the spells that she had on the young witch.

"I'm sorry for shouting Willow," she apologized in a quiet gentle voice.  "It is just surprising.  The scrying spell that you just used, twice in a row now, is a very powerful one.  Well, very powerful for one that is supposed to be of your talents.  Which is not supposed to be much at all.  Tell me, what can you tell me about the spell you cast in the Gym yesterday afternoon?"

            Scrunching her face in confusion at the question, and much relieved that she wasn't being yelled at, Willow carefully considered her answer, as well as the question before speaking.  Finally, "Uh, I just kind of reacted.  I wasn't really thinking at the time, and I didn't really mean to cast a spell, and Amy, that's the other witch that has been teaching me magic back at home, never taught me anything about mystical barriers or anything like that, so I, uh…I don't really know that much about it." She finished quietly.

            Sitting back and steepling her fingers in front of her, the Arch Mage carefully regarded Willow before speaking again.  When she did, it was in the same quiet voice, but with an air of authority and respect around it.  "Please forgive me Willow, I have been very rude.  Allow me to introduce myself and our surroundings.  I am the Arch Mage Level 2, of Earth and Water and master of nine of the fourteen forbidden arts.  My name is Amana, Amana Grael, when in private you may call me such.  In public and in training, you may call me Arch Mage, or Teacher, depending on the situation and the place.  You are currently in my private office, on the third floor of the Mage Tower.  That means that we are near the top.  In the Mage Tower we always count the roof as the first floor and count down from there, mostly because we keep changing the building and its floors, it is easier to work things that way, especially with basements.  Heh, heh, heh," Amana laughed.  Willow smiled, put much at ease, but as yet not understanding what the elder magic crafter was talking about, she didn't particularly find it funny.

            "And you are Willow Rosenberg," Amana continued.  "A witch in training that has had a summary total of three whole months of experience with magic and any of its rituals and beliefs and sciences."

            "Well, actually…" Willow started, but stopped when the blond haired woman gave her a look that told her it would be wiser to wait until she was finished.

            "You also only started spell casting a single month ago, am I correct in all of this information?" Amana pointedly asked, referring for Willow to finish her correction.

            Instead, Willow just timidly nodded and remained quiet.  Frowning with annoyance and slight frustration, Amana cleared her throat, causing Willow to look up.  "Actually…what Willow?" she proffered.

            Willow blinked in confusion for a second and then decided to finish the thought since her teacher was making it a point for her _to_ finish it.  "Uh…well, I was going to say that I only knew a few rituals and it's a little closer to two months, three weeks and two days, not counting today.  Uh…that's all."

            Amana smiled gently at the shying young woman.  "Willow," she whispered like a soft breeze.  Willow looked up, not sure what to expect.  She saw kind eyes with gentle power staring back at her, they were almost hypnotic, yet Willow never let herself get drawn away from the reality that was her teacher staring at her.

            Smiling a little brighter, Amana sat forward and crooked her finger in a "come here" gesture.  Willow leaned forward a little herself, expecting either a yelling directly in her ear, or some magical secret to be whispered even softer than her voice that if it were said any louder would do serious damage.

            Instead, Amana simply said in a quiet, yet stern like no Principal could ever hope to be tone, "Willow.  If you want to succeed at anything, magic most included, you must be more confident and not afraid of _any_ consequences.  Speak up, shout your thoughts to the world and if they judge you for it, damn them.  Do not refuse to stand up for yourself and never let anyone control you.  And just because you can stand up for yourself, don't let it go to your head and be disrespectful.  Do you understand me?"

            Willow nodded and said as respectfully as she could, "Yes ma'am."

            Amana closed her eyes and sighed.  Shaking her head, she stood up and walked over to a cabinet that had appeared only at the moment that she stood in front of it.  She rummaged for a moment and then came back to her desk with a strangely shaped bottle filled with a red liquid, the cabinet disappearing when she turned her back to it.

            "What's that?" Willow asked as the Arch Mage walked back to her seat.  Amana did not answer her, rather conjured a very beautiful crystal chalice on the desk in front of Willow.  Once the teacher was sitting once more, she opened the bottle and immediately the room was filled with a heady scent the likes that Willow had never before imagined nor encountered.

            Amana poured the red liquid into the chalice until the crystal cup was filled to the brim.

            "Drink it.  All of it." She ordered.

            "What is it?" Willow asked again.

            Amana stared hard at her, but Willow remained firm in her questioning look.  Finally Amana replied, "Just something to help you relax and allow me to begin the process of assessing your magical abilities and any training you _do_ have.  It will not have any long-term effects on you and all I ask is that you drink it in order for you to be properly assessed."

            Nodding, Willow picked up the chalice and carefully placed the red liquid under her nose, smelling with her senses and what magical instincts she had.  Detecting a little bit of alcohol, yet nothing outright dangerous, the witch tipped her head back and downed the drink in a few gulps.  Willow immediately felt the relaxing aspects of the liquid and quickly sat the chalice back on the desk before she lost her focus.

            "Wow," she commented, surprisingly not slurred in the slightest.  "That's, uh, that's great stuff."  Amana just grinned and waved at the chalice and it vanished.  She stared intently at Willow for several short minutes, giving the red witch the thought that even if she could detect any kind of spell that the Arch Mage was casting on her, there would be absolutely no way for her to counteract it.

            "Willow, how much do you really know about magic?" Amana suddenly asked her.

            Slightly thrown off-balance by the sudden question, Willow took a second to consider her answer.  "Well, uh not all that much to be totally honest.  I mean, I know it exists.  I know a few Celtic rituals and I've read several tomes from various cultures that explain magic, or they try to anyway.  I also know a few voodoo tricks, though Amy and her aunts told me never to try them." She finally answered.

            Raising an eyebrow at the last admission, Amana asked, "_Did_ you ever try a voodoo 'trick'?"  Rather than being offended or looking crossly at the elder witch, Willow just blushed a furious scarlet and hung her head a little.  That was all the answer anyone would need.  Nodding her head, Amana refrained from comment on that for the moment.  She still had several more minutes before the liquid would take complete effect and she could properly gauge Willow's talents, so for now she might as well make small talk.

            "Well, allow me to try and fill in some of the gaps in your education Willow…" Amana offered, bringing the young girl's head up.  She then proceeded to give Willow a basic lecture on magical theory, and proven magical fact.  Explaining first what magic was, the energy of the mind and various other forces throughout a plane of space, and then how very few and specific people and entities born had the potential to attract and direct these energies.

            After some time, at a point when Willow was practically buzzing with the information she had absorbed faster than a sponge, Amana proceeded to take Willow into the lab portion of her office and proceeded to test her mental and magical talents.  Some of the tests, such as levitation and transfiguration were familiar to the young witch, while others like matter manipulation and energy fixation were completely unfamiliar to her.  It took several hours, and surprisingly after it, Willow was even more buzzed and full of energy than she was before.

            "So?  How'd I do?" she bubbled as they went back to the desk.

            Amana tried unsuccessfully to hide the growing smile on her face.  "Well Willow, Goku was quite correct in saying that you have great potential.  And I, among a few others, which Goku is included in, have been charged in bringing out this potential and into its full blossom as quickly as possible.  We will have lunch here today Willow."

            Willow's eyes widened as her mind processed what the Arch Mage was indicating with that one sentence.  Swallowing the large lump that had appeared in her throat at that very instance, Willow nodded and put on 'resolve face'.  Amana openly grinned as she waved her hands and suddenly, no flash of light, no sensation of movement, just one second in the office, and the next moment they were in a place that looked like classroom with a large table with a single uncomfortable chair at its center place.  The walls were stone gray and Willow saw no possible exit, not even an MTC.

            "Uh…" she stuttered a little worried.

            Any further comment was cut off completely as Amana waved her right hand and the long very large wooden table was suddenly stacked full, up to at least three feet, corner to corner with various books and tomes that were all of varying ages as they were of sizes.  Eyes wide in both amazement, and a little worry, Willow turned to the Arch Mage.

            Just before she disappeared in a flash of white-yellow light, Amana turned to look Willow straight in the eye and ordered, "Read these.  All-of-them.  I will return when you have finished and I will test you on every one of them.  _Then_ we will have lunch.  If you finish early enough, I _might_ let you have your meal with your friends at the Mess," she smiled darkly, "but I doubt that you'll finish in the allotted time.  Remember, there _will_ be a test."  And then she disappeared, leaving Willow alone in the room with the biggest homework assignment of her life.

            The place that the three black clad warriors stepped into from the glowing red portal was both impressive and disappointing in its own rites.  It was a room about twice as large as the room they had just been in, save for the ceiling that was the same height, and the fact that it was filled with equipment that somehow made it seem even smaller than the training room.

            What made it impressive, despite the sheer size, was the startling number and variety of the equipment scattered evenly in a pattern unique to the place.  What made it disappointing was the fact that every single piece of equipment could be found in any Moore's Fitness© center gym.  There were several number of each type of equipment, the average being around four or so, but not often any more than that.  There were treadmills, stair machines, four individual workout machines, you know those kinds that have about four different weight training machines all put in one, and a larger variety of aerobic exercise devices than either teenager had ever encountered before.

            "What is this place?" Buffy asked, in awe as they walked down an aisle between several of the training tools.  Goku stopped them in front of one of the treadmills before answering.

            "Beginners Training room," he provided as way of explanation.  "Here, you build up your strength, speed, and muscles.  _Then_ we work on training you to fight.  Like I said, strength training.  You two will workout here, on what I put you on, for as long as I say with the only breaks being what I give you and water.  Buffy, here's your first stop."  Pointing at a relatively simplistic treadmill.

            It was really only the black walk cloth, the wheels and motors that the cloth ran on, and a bar to hold onto if you needed the added support, only without all the added fancy electronics and stuff.  Buffy just shrugged it off, figuring it to either be set by her pace, or to be fully automated.  Nodding, and hoping she wasn't going to regret it, Buffy got up onto the treadmill, grabbed the bar and waited for any further instruction.

            "For right now, just set your own pace and we'll see how long you can keep it up.  I'll be on the other side, getting Xander set up.  Have fun," Goku grinned as he and the dark-haired youth walked off.  Buffy grinned back, good-naturedly, not wanting the stronger warrior to see how much she was worried over this.

            Taking a deep breath and holding onto the bar, Buffy began a light jog.  The cloth surprisingly didn't have the slow buildup that she was accustomed to with such devices and didn't drag in the slightest.  In fact it was just like jogging at the track at school, which Giles had made her run several times last year during training.

            Meanwhile, Xander was still in the sweating buckets phase.  Even when Goku led him over to something he was quite familiar with…a weight bench.  The reason that Xander was temporarily relieved was because there were no bulky uncomfortable large round weights on the sides of the bar.  Until he remembered about the gravity enhancers Goku told him were in his jacket and boots that could make the clothes he was wearing feel like twenty tons.  If they could do that to clothing, they could certainly do that to a weight bench.

            "Ohhhh, shit…" Xander couldn't help muttering as he came to this revelation.

            Goku just grinned and forcefully pushed Xander onto the device by his shoulders.

            "Don't worry Xander, we know you're not as strong as Buffy.  Yet.  So we'll start off pretty easy.  About a hundred or so pounds by your measurement scale.  Do no less than an equal hundred reps and I'll be here to spot you.  And count.  So get started, I'm planning on changing Buffy up in about twenty minutes, and we aren't moving until you are finished.  So the less time you are here, the less time that Buffy is huffing and puffing over there, 'Kay?" Goku challenged the young teen.  At which Xander suddenly got a very determined look in his eye.

            _'Ah, teenage crushes.  Has there ever been a more effective way to motivate such creatures?'_ Goku mused to himself as Xander got a comfortable grip on the bar.  Then he answered himself, _'Nope,'_ with a smug grin.

            _'All right,'_ Xander thought to himself, _'I can do this.  No problem.  Most of my books that I carry around at school weigh more than a hundred pounds, so this won't be that bad.  At least I won't have to sit in a boring classroom listening to an even more boring lecture from a boring teacher.  Come on Xander, you can do this, you can do this, you can do this…'_ he began repeating the mantra over and over in his mind.  Until he actually tried to lift the bar.

            _'What the hell_!!_'_ Xander thought as he felt as if her were trying to bench press his dad's Buick rather than a six foot long bar with no weights on it.

            "Uh, Goku?" Xander grabbed the trainer's attention.  "Yeah Xander?" Goku asked like he was being asked a question about a movie he was watching at the moment.  "I can't lift the bar.  I thought you said it was only one hundred pounds?"  Xander was surprised when Goku started shaking his head.

            "I said that we would be _starting you off_ with one hundred pounds.  In order to do that, you actually have to get started, which means that you have to lift the bar yourself, no changing it's force weight until then." Goku explained.

            "Uh, just curious, just how much 'force weight' does this thing have right now?" Xander asked, very afraid of the answer.

            "Well," Goku started off, like he was about to explain something complex and he knew Xander would still find it fascinating, "it's made out of the same material as yours and Buffy's swords, plus all the circuitry, and the power source, which is almost as dense as the material itself.  So, until you actually manage to pick that bar at least three inches from its holding position for longer than five point six second intervals, which by the way count as 'two' counts, you know; 'One…Two…that's one second interval.  Until you do that, it won't become one hundred pounds.  And I can't help you, doesn't count unless you're the one to do it."

            "The same metal…" Xander quietly repeated.  "But…but-but _Buffy_ could hardly lift that sword, and you're expecting me to lift something that's supposed to weigh _twice_ as much?!!" Xander near shouted.  Enough to get Buffy's attention.

            "Hey!" she shouted from the treadmill.  "Everything OK over there?"

            Goku glared dangerously at the loud teen beneath him before answering, "Fine."

            Suddenly Goku showed just how dangerous a trainer he really could be by getting his face less than an inch from Xander's, eye-to-eye.  "Lift." He hissed out.  An order, no, a command.  One that Xander dare not disobey.

            Swallowing the lump in his throat, Xander started taking deep breaths and reacquired the comfortable grip with his very sweaty hands.  Then he started to flex his arm muscles to lift the bar up the necessary three inches.  After a full minute, he had repositioned his legs several times for better leverage and still hadn't budged the massive (due to it's density) bar.  After five minutes, Xander finally made some headway.  His head looking like it'd explode any second, his arms feeling like they were on fire and his chest was exchanging oxygen in such quantities that he could fill a hot air balloon and keep it in the air for an hour.  He lifted it less than a millimeter, but he had moved it.  Rather than stop, rest and spend an hour congratulating himself on the back, he redoubled his resolve and continued to push as hard as he humanly could upward.

            After the point where he was seeing more stars and red than the gray of the ceiling, he finally moved it a full millimeter from the holding position.  Breathing through his nostrils, as he had been taught was the best way to breath when heavily exerting oneself, Xander spent the total of the next ten minutes working the bar millimeter by millimeter continuously upward, until finally something broke (metaphorically speaking) inside him and he started open mouthed breathing, which he found gave him much deeper oxygen reserves, despite everything he had been taught to the opposite.  After that point, the lifting somehow seemed easier.  Not greatly in the slightest, just enough that he seemed to have enough energy to actually complete it.

            Thirty minutes after Buffy had been placed on the treadmill, Xander finally lifted the bar over the threshold mark.  It did not immediately lighten to the one hundred pounds that he had been told it had been set to, rather it gradually lightened as he continued to lift it higher until his arms were fully outstretched.  And even by that point he was not certain that it was at the one hundred pounds it was supposed to be, so carefully he moved the bar from over his head where the holding position was to over his chest, hoping and trusting yet at the same time not trusting Goku to spot him and keep the incredibly dense bar from crushing him.  Even if he was immortal now, which he still didn't quite entirely believe yet.

            After less than a minute in that position, Goku stared at him and impatiently asked, "Well?"  Taking a really big breath, Xander began his reps.  His arms felt like they were on fire while being crushed into pancakes, but he kept on lifting.  After he lost count around thirty or so, he began to feel a slight difference, a very slight difference in his pain.  As he kept pushing the weight upward and slowly letting it down to his chest, he thought at some points that he could actually _feel_ his muscles growing and strengthening.

            After a near eternity of torture for Xander, Goku interrupted his rhythm, snapping his fingers in front of the young man's face.  Xander paused long enough to realize what was happening before pushing the bar back up, fully extending his arms and locking them into place, as comfortable as he could get at the moment.  "Yeah?" he gasped out, his entire frame drenched in his own sweat.

            "You're done.  Put the bar back down and join me over by the treadmills." Goku ordered, walking away.

            Xander sighed a huge breath of relief and maneuvered the bar accordingly and carefully lowered the bar, which somehow seemed to get heavier with every inch until it was less than a millimeter from the cradle, and there he let it drop the rest of the way.  Taking gulping breaths, Xander just lay there for several minutes, letting his tired and suddenly light, airy feeling arms just rest for the moment or two.

            After the rest, Xander slowly sat up, waiting for the dizziness and lightheaded sensations to leave his brain in peace before standing up fully.  Once he was comfortable on his feet again, he looked around the room until he saw where Buffy, who was still on the treadmill, and Goku, who was standing just off to the side from her staring at him, were.  He quickly made his way over to them, despite feeling the need to sit down and take a nap or something.

            "Sorry," Xander apologized automatically as he came up to the black clad pair, "but do you honestly expect me to recover from doing one hundred reps of a one hundred pound bar as fast as you two would?  No I didn't think so."

            Buffy, who was equally drenched in her sweat as Xander was, looked pleadingly at Goku.  He noticed that her pace was much more brisk than what she started out on.  "Can I _please_ get off now?" Buffy huffed between breaths.

            Goku nodded, still staring at Xander.  Xander finally noticed it to the point that it started to creep him out.  "What?" he asked loudly.  Goku frowned a little and shook his head as Buffy got off the treadmill and immediately bent over and began to try and get her breathing back under control.

            "It's nothing," Goku answered Xander's question.  "Get on the treadmill.  Start at whatever pace you like that will keep up with the runner.  It'll increment faster and you won't be allowed off until you either outrace the machine, or we come and get you and let you off.  Buffy, come with me."

            Buffy nodded and stood up, only to bend back over to keep from throwing up her breakfast.  Normally she could handle the two or three miles that Giles had her run daily at extreme paces most mornings and afternoons.  She just felt like she had run top speed for over fifty miles.  No rest.

            Once Buffy's breathing was semi-under control, she swallowed deeply, stood, and followed Goku who had waited for her to catch her breath.  Xander meanwhile got onto the treadmill, that same that Buffy had used, and began to walk.  As soon as he did, the running cloth picked up speed until he was at a fairly decent jog.  Gulping, he wiped some sweat from his forehead and kept pace.  For the next hour.  And through six increment increases until he was running flat out at 13½ mph.

            Buffy on the other hand was taken over to the row of weight benches.  "Is this what you had Xander doing?" Buffy asked as she sat down on one of the benches and laid back.  Goku nodded and twisted a knob just above where her head rested.

            Frowning, Buffy asked, "What did you do?"

            Goku looked her in the eye and replied, "Well, you're stronger, much stronger than Xander is.  I have to increase the weight that you lift to make any sort of difference.  'Kay?"  Buffy thought about it for a second, and deciding that it did make sense, she nodded.  Goku nodded back and told her, "I'll tell you when to stop."  She nodded once more before setting her feet, getting a comfortable grip on the weight-less bar and taking several deep breaths through her nostrils.  Then she lifted the bar straight up like it really was only six foot metal bar.

            She cocked an eyebrow at the lifted instrument before grunting, "Heavy," and began doing reps.  She kept a very intense pace, and only slowed when her arms began to get sore.  Even then she quickly pushed past the pain and kept the same pace.  After a half hour, and nearly one hundred and seventy reps later, Goku had remained quiet and Buffy was still going at a blazingly intense pace.  Twenty minutes after that, Goku decided that she'd done enough, the weights having incremented twice, first from two hundred to five hundred, where her arms began to get sore, and then from five hundred to one thousand pounds, and she had barely flinched, keeping the same straining pace.

            "All right Buffy, that's enough," he ordered, grabbing the bar on the up-push.  Buffy blinked and shook her head, having gotten into a zone while her body pushed itself farther than she had ever been allowed before.  She was hardly out of breath as she sat the bar down and sat up.  She flexed her arms and rolled the around, stretching out the muscles, hearing them sing with the exercise and work out.  She rolled her neck a little before standing up and looking up at Goku, waiting for his next exercise.

            She almost found herself eager for the challenge.  She wasn't sure, but something about this training, training different and more intense than she had ever felt or even conceived of before, was exciting a part of her that she usually associated with her more primal, or Slayer instincts.  Maybe Slayers naturally want to get stronger and her body in realizing this was practically celebrating at the chance.

            Shaking off the feelings for the moment, she focused on Goku.  He was staring at Xander again.  She knew the look too.  It was a calculating stare, one that was put on the face of one who wants to find out something, knows where to look for it, and only has to wait for it to appear before him.  Buffy's seen it more times than she could guess on Willow's face while they were having a study/cram session.  Giles sometimes bore it himself during training, wondering what Buffy would have to learn next as a part of her "destiny".

            Buffy, wondering what Goku was looking for exactly, turned to stare at Xander as well.  Then she realized something else.  Goku was probably sensing Xander's power to see if it was actually growing or whatever.  Focusing as she had learned the day before to do, Buffy recognized 'Goku' almost immediately, but she had a little bit of trouble finding 'Xander'.  When she actually 'found' him, she could somehow sense how she would never normally pick him up on her radar, but she could instinctively tell that she would still be able to sense him.

            Focusing all her senses, most especially her new sixth and/or seventh, on her friend, Buffy began to feel out what was happening within the young man.  She was more than a little amazed when she felt his current level of "power", though it was far less than her own, it was surprisingly strong.  She wasn't sure how she knew this, but she didn't doubt it.  The next thing that surprised her was that she could sense Xander's "Potential Power" or how much energy he could actually be putting into his work.  She was more than just a little surprised to feel his power output to be very far below that potential.  Very far below.

            Shaking herself out of the stupor that focusing on Xander had done, she turned back to Goku, who was now staring at her.  "What?" she asked automatically.  He smiled roguishly and said, "Nothing."  Grimacing in annoyance, Buffy decided to let it go for the moment and pushed him for her next exercise.

            "OK, never mind then.  What next?  I mean, if you're going to be alternating us between these two for the whole day, then why not just let us do them at the same time, or let me do weights until Lunch and Xander on the track, and then after lunch we come back and switch or whatever." Buffy suggested.

            Goku just shook his head and turned away from Xander and walked to the next corner of the room.  "I'm not even going to dignify that stupid question with an answer.  And yes it is a stupid question because it's a stupid idea.  I'm spacing out your exercises so that your muscles can cope with the strain they're being put under.  Rather than focus on one group of muscles for an extended period of time and forcing them to adapt overnight, they are getting rest periods that allow them to expand and grow and it also targets more than just one area of muscles.  Your way would cause cramps and sore muscles for at least the next day and force you into the clinic for some massive massage therapy.  This way, you adapt and grow stronger quicker and with much less pain."

            "Massage?" Buffy asked, following, and with a note of youthful anticipation in her voice.

            "Massage Therapy." Goku corrected.  "It would not be a normal massage and it would not be as relaxing.  Massage Therapy focuses on relaxing, unknotting, and helping the muscles to grow.  Sort of like Acupuncture.  Useful, relaxing, but extremely painful."

            "Oh,"

            The area that Goku led the Slayer to was actually little more than padding with a white circle on it.  The trainer waved the girl into it and she stepped into the center.  Looking at him, her question written on her face, Goku answered it.  "Another adaptation exercise.  For the time being, just stretch, using that technique I taught you.  Then wait for me to return.  If you get bored waiting, then do a few of your own exercises, like pushups or whatever floats your boat."

            Just as he was turning around, Buffy shot out a quick question.  "What exactly does this circle do?"

            Without turning around, Goku responded, "It's a Graviton-Enhancer Operator.  Or GEO.  In short, it's what activates the weights in your outfit.  This is to get you used to the gravity of the Compound as well as strengthen your muscles and endurance.  Don't worry, if it gets to be too much, just sit still and let your body adapt to it that way."

            "What?!!" Buffy screeched as the Saiyan walked away.  Buffy wanted to go running after him and drag him back and beat him to a pulp for even suggesting such a torture, but another question sprung to mind before she could move.

            "How heavy is it going to be?" she shouted.

            Goku stopped and turned back in her direction.  "10 G's.  Or ten times the force of Earth's natural gravity.  However, since Earth uses 1.2 Gravitons, about 20.7 Gravitons per sq. in." he answered back, and then resumed his walk over to Xander to get him off the treadmill.

            Buffy gulped and just stood there for several minutes.  Goku and Xander were well out of range of her hearing, but she found that with her new sense she could tell exactly where they were.  Though she had trouble telling what exactly it was they were doing.

            After several longer minutes, Buffy decided to sit down and wait for them to get back, rather than have to fight to stay standing when the thing increased the gravity.  Sitting Indian-style, Buffy calmed her breathing and tried to relax a little.  She noticed the air was getting a little heavy, but she chocked it up to her sweat.  After what felt like several hours but was less than thirty minutes, Buffy's restless mind forced her into action.  Standing up, which she was surprised was harder than normal, but again she just chocked it up to her sore and tired muscles, she began to pace around the circle.

            After another ten minutes, which she actually tried to count she was so bored, Buffy had to stop pacing, her muscles screaming out for a slight rest.  She stood in the center of the circle once more, just standing still, yet her leg muscles still demanded a rest.  Yawning suddenly, Buffy scratched behind her neck and noticed how slow and heavy her arm felt as she did it.  Biting her lower lip, Buffy wondered if the suit would activate whether Goku was here to activate it or not.  Chances were pretty good that it had been active since he had left.

            Shaking her head, feeling the contents being pulled downward, Buffy decided to fight this as much as was possible.  She reached both her arms upward and stretched, standing on her toes.  The effect was as she feared, heavy and way more difficult to do than it should have been.  Buffy decided to take Goku's suggestion and exercise to occupy herself until he came to let her out of this.  She worked the stretch routine that Goku had taught them once more, and surprisingly this actually helped her muscles causing them to feel less heavy.

            Then she sat back down, and began to do one hundred push-ups.  After she did that, she was heavy-winded and her arms were sorer than they'd ever been before.  Next she rolled over and did about fifty or so sit-ups and stomach crunches.  After that, she jumped to her feet and began to pace again, waiting impatiently for Goku.  Thirty minutes, thirty excruciatingly long minutes later, Buffy stretched one last time, and as she was finishing up with that, Goku and a very exhausted Xander came to her section of the gym.

            "Hey guys," she greeted good-naturedly, though she felt everything but.  "Wow, Xan, you look pooped, flushed, recycled, and everything inbetween."  Xander barely had the energy to respond with a weak grin and a small wave.

            "All right," Goku groaned at the bad joke, "Enough of that Slayer.  X!  Get in the circle.  No questions, no comments, and do not pass GO or collect two hundred dollars!"

            Xander hastily walked into the circle before Goku had even finished speaking.  Buffy grinned at him openly and patted him on the shoulder as they traded places.  After he more or less caught his breath, standing straight in the middle of the circle Xander finally managed the energy to speak once again.  "So, uh, what exactly is this?" he asked sounding uncertain.

            Buffy opened her mouth to give the explanation that she had been given, but stopped herself at the last second to glance at Goku to see if he wanted to answer it instead.  When she glanced at him, he was staring intently at his Global, occasionally tapping a key or two.  When he finally finished whatever he was doing and looked up at the two teenagers staring at him.  Then he recalled the question that Xander had asked.

            "Oh, it's uh…the device that activates the weights in your uniform.  I'm setting it for about ten G's for you Xander.  But we'll do it gradually, don't worry too much X.  Buffy was started out at more or less the same level, but because of her adaptive nature, we've already increased it."

            Buffy was nearly floored, and it was at that moment that she realized that she was still feeling the same "heaviness" that she had been feeling for the last hour or more.  Her eyes bulging, she sputtered at the trainer, "Y-y-yo-y-y-yo-you-u-YOU _increased_ the gravity!!!?" she ended up screaming.  Goku just nodded and had gone back to his Global.

            In her rage at being deceived, Buffy never noticed the slight glowing that appeared on the bottom of her boots, and hardly even bothered to realize that she was now storming forward towards Goku in the equivalent of 50 times Earth's normal gravity.  Goku just stood there, withstanding Buffy's brief rage and after the brief minutes, during which she completely lost her train of thought and ended up confusing herself, (and anyone else that would have tried to follow her line of thought), he just glared at her until she got back down and crossed her arms and pouted like an angry two year old.

            Goku was actually more than a little impressed.  Buffy's uniform had actually been 'G-active' since she had put on the jacket and had stepped through the MTC for the Training Room.  From the moment that she had started the katas and exercises, the uniform had been set to just over 4 G's, the most that many humans could handle.  After seeing this on the training room monitors, the people in charge of such things slowly incremented Buffy's G's until by the time that she got off the treadmill, she had been running in 10 G's for the past ten miles or so.  When Goku had taken her to the circle, there it was put immediately into 20 G's.  She didn't even show signs of feeling it until they incremented it to 25 G's, the equivalent of being in the Earth's core.  They left it at that as she began to exercise, and only incremented it again when Goku came back over with Xander, to 30.  When Goku called for an update, he was just as shocked as they had been at how well Buffy adapted to the stronger gravities.  Then, using his considerable influence and so forth, he authorized that she be upgraded to a steady _50 G's_, or 50.9 Gravitons per sq. _cm._  Which is what she was at, and she was acting like most humans did in **5 G's**!!  Goku however had kept his word on Xander, even though he knew he should be harder on the boy since he wasn't even using his maximum energy, and kept the youth on a slow increment to steady off at 10 G's when he stepped into the white circle.

            Suddenly, his Global beeped at him, startling everyone there.  Pulling it open, Goku read that on higher orders, and irrevocable authorization, Xander's training had been upgraded to a flux _20 gravitons per sq. **cm.**_  Translating to 20 G's, and not always that.  He quirked his eyebrows at the statement of data and then smiled darkly.

            "What?" Xander and Buffy cried out in fear at the same time.

            Glancing up, Goku's grin grew darker.  He said two words that both confused the hell out of them, and sent cold shivers up and down their spines.  "Sparring time," he answered darkly.

            Two solid hours later, Buffy and Xander were panting and limping their way through the MTC back to the Gym where their day of hell had started.  Giles was now sitting Indian-style in the middle of the room, the unsheathed Nightblade laying length-wise across his knees.  He seemed almost completely unaware of them, his eyes closed and his form completely still.  That is, until he spoke without moving a thing other than his lips.

            "Hello Buffy, Xander, Goku," he softly greeted.

            "Hey Giles," Goku greeted way too cheerily.  After the workout and beating that he had just given the two teenagers, they could barely stand straight.  Not to mention the way that Giles had done the whole "I know you're there even though I can't see you" thing really creeped them out.  Finally Xander couldn't stand it anymore, literally.

            Collapsing to the floor in exhaustion, the lanky youth concentrated more on continued breathing rather than getting back up or listening to the conversation around him.  Buffy looked about to join him, but she was more concerned about the members of her team that she had not witnessed nor seen since they had split up more than four hours ago.  Still, she also could no longer stand it, and settled for collapsing onto her butt and more or less staying there as little more than a heap of flesh for several more minutes.

            When her breath caught up with her lungs, Buffy finally found the strength to ask her Watcher the question she had been pondering on for the past three hours.  It can get boring on a treadmill with nothing to read or look at.  "Giles," she called hoping to get any kind of response from the statue on the floor.  He just replied, moving nothing but his lips, "Yes Buffy?"

            Thinking that was the best she could get for now, and not really up to being the annoyingly cute little girl that she could always get her little finger wrapped around him with, she just asked her question.  "Giles, what have you been doing since we left?  I mean, I know Will's supposed to be doing the witch thing, and me and Xander have just had the living hell beat out of us," Goku's grin just got a little wider as he stood off against the wall, "and I've been worried sick that if that was happening to us, you'd either be in Librarian heaven in research, or getting something almost as bad as we've gotten.  Plus, you're acting all weird."

            "Weird?" Giles asked.

            Xander, from the floor, "Yeah, you know!  The whole, zombie-comatose-Jedi-sensing thing you did when we walked in.  Plus, I don't think you've moved in a _very_ long time.  Whereas me and Buff here had to do all we could to _keep_ moving just so we wouldn't fly across the room when Mr. I'm-so-tough-I-beat-up-teens-and-laugh-while-doing-it actually hits us.  And he even tells us he wasn't even trying that hard!!"

            "But I wasn't," Goku supplied with a laugh.

            Buffy groaned, and finding enough energy struggled to her feet and made it over to Giles.  "Giles, if you ever, and I mean _ever_ put me through something like that, I will kill you.  Call it a promise."

            "I think that you might find that more difficult that you realize Slayer," Giles retorted.

            Slightly perturbed by the cold response, yet realizing that he was just calling her by her codename, Buffy barely had to think of the responding retort coming out of her mouth.  "Well, _Watcher_, as it being that I already beat your ass black and blue in training, I mi-iiiIIIII-yii!" Buffy screeched.  Faster than Buffy had ever thought anyone but Goku could move, Giles grabbed the hilt of his obsidian sword, swung it around and turned it so that the flat of the blade would hit the back of her knees, thereby tripping the blond girl and forcing her to land hard on her backside against the floor.  Of course, the Graviton generators in her suit were still active, making it that much more hard of a fall.

            More than just a little surprised, Buffy took a little time to shake loose the stars that had come back to her vision, only to see the blade at her jugular, less than a millimeter from breaking skin.  Too afraid to gulp, Buffy froze on the spot and for the first time, truly afraid of the man that she had thought too often just as helpless as any other victim.

            Then the blade was retracted and Buffy could breath safely again.  "Consider it a warning Slayer.  My skills with the Blade have only just begun, and they will continue to increase with each day that passes.  I'm confident that Goku has something very rigorous planned for all of us, not just you and Xander.  So I'm sure that you'll get to see me in the very shape you've found yourself in, at some point."

            Getting up, and knowing not to _ever_ threaten Giles' life unless she could very well back it up ever again, Buffy only nodded in response and went to help Xander up.  He had sat up when Buffy had screamed out, and the surge of adrenaline the event had caused for the both of them was enough to get them both to their feet.

            "So now what Goku?" Buffy asked.  And almost immediately regretted.  Every time that she had said that to him today, he had always come up with something that left her almost dead tired after doing.

            "Well," he began, "right now we're waiting to see if Witch is going to join us.  If not, then we're going to exercise in here until Lunchtime.  Non-stop."

            Xander just groaned in misery, while Buffy frowned a little but didn't vocalize any response.  Giles meanwhile was still in his Yoga thing and she really didn't want to know what it was that he was meditating on.  Suddenly, Buffy felt something.  With her new sense.

            Focusing immediately upon it, she tried to make sense of what she was feeling.  At the very first, it felt incredibly strong.  Then it slowly ebbed off until whatever it was, was still very strong, but not incredibly so.  Like when a wave crashes into the shore.  The crest of the wave is incredibly more powerful that the rest of the wave, but when it hits the shore it disappears rapidly leaving the rest of the wave, which is powerful in its own right, just not as much as it was during the crash to shore.  That's kind of what this power felt like.

            "Goku?" she grabbed her Trainer's attention.

            "Yeah?" he asked.

            "What's that?" she just asked, staring off into space, not really at anything.

            Confused, Goku asked back, "What's what?"

            "That power," she answered.  "It was incredibly strong for a second or so, and then it just kind of ebbed off.  What, or rather _who_ was it?  It felt kind of close."

            Scrunching his face in confusion, Goku focused his energy and tried to discover what power it was that Buffy had just discovered.  When he found it, he blinked in shock.  Heck, he _was_ in shock.

            When Buffy saw that he had found what she felt, she asked, "Well?"

            "Uh… well, Buffy…uh…" he mumbled.

            "Spit it out Goku!" she shouted.

            Rather than say anything, Goku just looked straight at Giles.  Buffy followed his stare, and then she was staring at Giles.  When the implications hit her, her eyes widened and her breathing rapidly became shallow.  Blinking away the shock, the Slayer slowly composed herself and calmly asked Giles what he was doing.  "Giles, _Watcher_, what are you doing?  Goku says that it's your power that I'm feeling."

            "Actually, it is the Blade's, not my own.  Though at some point, I'm told, that my own power level will come to that ability." Giles monotonely replied.

            Shaking her head, trying to wrap her thoughts around what he just told her, Buffy shouted out, "What the hell is THAT supposed to mean?"

            The still figure on the floor had the audacity to actually smile right then.  "It means, Buffy, that the magic sword on my lap is very strong.  When it teaches me how to use it, I will be that strong."  The entire taunt was said like that of an adult "baby talking" to an infant, or when kids tease each other on the playground by talking like a little kid.

            Now that she understood how to use her power sense, as she began to think of it, Buffy actually _felt_ her own power level raise just a little.  She then focused on what her body was doing.  Getting ready to fight.  '_So that's the secret.  I just have to focus my body into various levels of fighting, then I can control how far my power level goes up.'_ Buffy realized.

            Forcing her fury at her Watcher's words into an even higher blaze, Buffy only felt her power raise barely a fraction higher.  She would need another focus to raise her level any higher.  Then she remembered her first Watcher, and how he just breezed into her life, and blew his windstorm of being the Chosen One, the Slayer, and then left her.  Just as she was beginning to think of him as more than just an annoyance.  Suddenly her rage, remembering all the pain, the heartache, and the fury at what the vampire master Lothos had done to her, it just exploded.

            Goku looked up in shock at Buffy, surprise clearly etched on his face.  But it was the next words out of the blond woman's mouth that shocked all of the men.

            "Get up you bastard!  I may take that kind of talk at school, from Goku, and hell even from my enemies, but I will be a damned soul in the first circle of Hell before I let you get away with talking to me like that!  Get up!  Fight me!!  I'll put you back down on that mat so fast that you'll wonder if that wimpy sword really is teaching you its shit!!" she shouted.

            Goku actually winced.  "Mistake," he muttered to himself.  "Do not insult the Blade."

            Before anybody could try to dissuade this very volatile situation, Buffy drew her katana blade like she had been born with it in her hand.  Giles opened his eyes.  Xander audibly gasped.  The Watcher's pupils were dilated to the point where his entire eyes looked black.  Buffy just stood their waiting, her impatience growing with each second.

            Smiling darkly, Watcher tossed the Blade twirling into the air.  Then he just back flipped from his cross-legged position on the floor onto his feet, and then he caught the Blade on its down crest.  Twirling it in his palm, he asked his charge, "Are you sure about this Buffy?  I mean, even before we came here, I could still beat you in fencing."

            "Who the hell said we were going to fence?" Buffy replied with a dark voice.

            Faster than Xander had ever seen her move before, Buffy was at Giles, her sword swinging in fast and sharp arcs.  Giles blocked every one.  After ten or twenty seconds of just wild swinging, Buffy actually developed into a more or less pattern with the katana, which Goku, or anyone with a trained eye, would notice the Giles easily adapted to.  Buffy continued to try and hammer past Giles' defenses, keeping Watcher entirely on the defensive.

            Then something seemed to happen.  Buffy either caught her second wind, or Giles was already tired after having sat down for so long because Watcher finally took a step back, having until now stood his ground where he landed.  His face too shown that he was beginning to tire, while Buffy's face was still enlightened by her fury.

            "Very good Buffy.  I think you're finally getting the hang of the katana.  Next you'll have to try the broad sword," Giles neutrally commented, trying to distract Buffy.

            Buffy's reaction was not what he had hoped it'd be.  Her face, if possible actually became more infuriated and her blows twice as hard and her speed noticeably increased.  Finally her rage became so great, that she yelled.

            "AaaaaaAAAAAAAHHHHH!!" a reverberating hollow sound that scared all the men to their core.  As her throat elicited this unearthly sound, her body moved so fast that Goku had trouble keeping up as he was.  Her sword knocked the Blade aside but for a moment, and before a human could blink, she performed the same move Watcher had done to her flawlessly.

            Caught completely off guard, and having no way to counter the move, Giles ended up on his backside on the floor, less than two minutes from the moment he left it.  When the stars had cleared from his vision, he saw the Slayer's make seven at his Adam's apple.  Knowing that he would cut himself on the laser-sharpened sword if he gulped or even breathed any heavier, Watcher stayed very, very still.

            Suddenly a loud sound of clapping filled the room.  Buffy lifted her sword and turned to look at the offending source, Goku.  "Very well done Slayer.  _Very_ well done," he complimented.

            Turning back to Watcher, Buffy asked in a stone cold tone, "I trust that I've made my point?"  He silently nodded from the floor.  "Good.  Both as team leader and the representative for this Tournament, I expect your respect.  If this "Blade" of yours really is sentient, then I expect its respect as well.  Xander, I trust that I have your respect, right?"

            Immediately, "Yes ma'am, you do, ma'am!"  He then snapped an awkward salute.  "You aren't gonna beat me up are you?"  Buffy grinned some and shook her head to the negative.

            Making a slight show of it, Buffy twirled the make seven katana on her wrist before sliding it over the hilt of the sheath and then fitting it firmly into the back-sheath.  After Giles got back to his feet, Buffy began to pace a little more.  After a couple minutes, she finally turned to Goku and boldly asked, "So how long are we going to wait for Willow?"

            Goku just stood there against the wall, his arms crossed across his chest, and glanced at her.  Then he just shrugged and replied, "However long you want to wait.  Lunch isn't for another two hours or so, and the reason we cut sparring time so short was because of how easily I kept beating you and Xander.  If you die more than five times in a single training session, it's one of the rules to move onto another exercise."

            Xander did a double take, as did Giles, though Xander's showed considerable more shock.  "We died!  How did we die?  I thought we were immortal because of the Powers!" he shouted.

            Goku nodded.  "You are.  That's why you're standing there shouting right now.  The way the whole immortality aspect works is like this.  If you're hurt, then you stay hurt until your body heals itself.  If you are hurt enough that you would die within one to twelve hours, then you are healed within five to ten minutes.  If you are hurt enough that it would be considered instant death, then the Powers directly heal you so that you are at whatever your full strength is within ten seconds.  I think I broke your back some twelve times Xander, only twice enough to cause instant death.  I snapped Buffy's neck nearly six times.  You'll also notice that any bruises that you would have from 'sparring practice' aren't even there.  And they won't be."

            Buffy stopped.  "So you're saying that we're only immortal that we can't die.  Not can't get sick, can't get old, and if we get so much as a paper cut it won't heal instantly right in front of our eyes.  Am I right?"

            "Not exactly.  The part where you don't get old does apply.  It's just not immediately noticeable.  And for injuries like paper cuts, bruises, even scrapes, they'll heal just as fast as your body normally heals it.  Only if it's life threatening does it heal any faster." Goku answered.

            "Oh, cool," Buffy commented before resuming her pacing.

            After another minute, which even Xander considered pacing, though unlike Buffy he was feeling every weight of his gravity enhancers, Buffy declared her boredom once again.  "Is there any way that we can _go_ to _Willow _rather than _her_ to _us_?" she shouted at Goku again.

            Goku deftly shook his head to the negative.  "No way.  The only people that can get _into_ the Mage Tower anyway are either mages, or mage's guests.  And before you ask, I don't know any mages so lets just cut that line of questioning off right there!"

            Buffy frowned and continued her pace about the room.  When it brought her next to Goku's position on the wall, she stopped.  "Fine.  Whatever.  But right now I'm restless.  I've never felt like this before to be honest.  It's like…"

            "Like you've been touched by a purifying fire, and when you touch it, it dances across your skin, making you feel more alive than you've ever felt before." Goku finished for her.

            Blinking, Buffy turned and stared up at Goku.  He just grinned at her.

            "How…how did you know…that?" she asked quietly.  Giles and Xander were both paying close attention to the pair.

            Goku just shrugged.  "For the first half of my life, spent in orphanages and the like, I always knew something was different about me.  I was stronger, faster, and tougher than anybody and everything.  Then I met Master Krillin.  Apparently he knew my great great grandfather when they were both kids.  Then he taught me Martial Arts.  And I actually felt like I was accomplishing something worthwhile in my life.  For the first time in my life, I felt like I was doing exactly what I was supposed to, and for the right reasons.  It wasn't until the Powers approached me that I felt the portion of my Saiyan heritage actually sing from the training I received.  It was in my fifth week of training here that I was able to cross the barrier into Super Saiyan.  The moment that I did, I never felt the same ever again.  I felt just like that."

            Buffy blinked and nodded her understanding.  Then she snapped her right arm out to attempt to punch Goku in the face.  Before her fist was even a foot from his face, he had blocked it by catching her arm.

            Without losing a beat, Buffy then snapped her left foot out, letting Goku hold most of her weight as she solidly connected with the side of his head.  Surprised, Goku let go of the Slayer's arm and rubbed absently where her foot had connected, soothing the dull pain that had appeared there.

            Buffy then tried to kick the Saiyan in the chest, but he wasn't distracted long enough for him to ignore her attacks and he easily blocked the kick with his arm.  Keeping up the best advantage that she'd had over the powerful fighter since she'd met him, Buffy kept swinging kicks at his head and chest, while he just as easily dodged or blocked them.

            Finally, after a minute of watching this continue, Xander realized what they were doing.  What they had been doing for the past two hours.  Sparring, according to Goku's definition anyway, was more or less a free-for-all where every fighter in the room tried to knock out every other fighter in the room.  Before, when it had just been Xander and Buffy versus Goku, needless to say it had been more than a bit one-sided.

            Buffy was a much better fighter than Xander was, but compared to Goku it really didn't matter.  He had avoided every single one of their attempts to land a hit on him, but no matter how many times they tried it seemed like every one of _his_ did.  After the first hour, Buffy had learned how Goku liked to fight, his style of fighting.  Well she at least recognized what it looked like.  And after 90 minutes, even Xander had caught onto some things.

            Taking a breath, which sounded more like a sigh of resignation, Xander gathered his metal and ran into the brawl fists swingin'.  He managed to angle himself so that he was behind Goku, but Buffy could still see him.  He had learned _that_ lesson after the first twenty or so accidents.

            Xander aimed for the back of the Saiyan's neck with a balled fist, coiled back his arm, and threw it with everything he could muster.  Less than a second before it would have landed, Goku vanished before their eyes.  He moved so fast they barely saw the lines of movement as he vacated the space.

            In the same amount of time that it took the image of Goku not being there to reach Xander's brain, he had already realized what had happened and sent the message to his arm and fist to stop before they hit Buffy.  With credit to Xander, he managed to freeze his body a second later, with more than two feet between his arm and Buffy.

            Yet at the same time, Buffy, having gotten into her fighting zone where she concentrates more about fighting and hitting the enemy rather than where she's going, didn't notice that Goku had 'flashed' away from her until the kick she had been firing off as he did, knocked Xander down and nearly all the way to the far wall.  She did notice it the second after though.

            Her senses screaming, Buffy ducked just in time under a high kick and soon found herself little time to wonder about how bad she had hurt Xander.  Even after all the times Goku had maneuvered them into the same trap over the past two hours, Buffy was still focused more on getting _to_ the target herself rather than realize the only hope she had of _getting_ the target was to use teamwork.

            After the kick, Buffy blocked several more as they came at her from nearly every side, and another vicious high kick every time she tried to fully stand.  Having had enough, Buffy rolled away from her attacker, paused, then rolled back the same way and twice the distance.  

Spinning as she came to her feet, Buffy managed to survey the entire room, determining the highest threat and the location of it and her target.  Buffy paused when she saw Giles, having drawn his sword, advancing on her.  Rapidly.

            Ducking under his first swing with his new Blade, Buffy saw the opening she often exploited when sparring with Giles during training.  After he struck, he always left his right side open.  Buffy's hand shot out without her even thinking about it.  Though she did have to force herself to put more force behind the blow than she normally did with Giles.

            Her result, while heart wrenching, was what she had expected.  Giles grunted and went to his knees in pain.  Buffy spun, giving a sloppy roundhouse to the hand holding the Blade, knocking it away from the Watcher, and then punched him in the face.  Harder than she normally had to, but the result was the same.  Giles got knocked out.  From his perspective though, for the last time.

            Buffy turned, seeing Giles slump to the floor into unconsciousness, and started scanning the room for Goku.  She barely had to look as he 'flashed' right in front of her, surprising her, but not enough to stop her instincts.  She reached up and decked him solidly across the face.

            His head turned slightly to the left, but he gave little else of a reaction to it.  Frowning, Buffy decided to see what all of that strength-training this morning had done for her, and doing her best to raise her power and put as much of it into this one punch that she could, she tried her right.

            Goku wasn't entirely sure what Buffy was up to when she started in on him.  Maybe she just really hated getting beat, maybe she normally trained like this, or maybe she was actually trying to prove something.  'Poor kid,' he thought to himself, 'I've gotta get it across to her that it takes a while before she's strong enough to take me like this.'

            Her first punch when he reappeared in front of her stung a little, but if he could stand multiple ki blasts and energy waves with nary a scratch, then he could stand the chance of getting a bruise on his cheek.  Her right punch however…

            Goku's head was snapped all the way back to his right she hit him so hard.  _'DAMN!  That **HURT**!!'_ was his first thought after the blow.  Buffy, not wanting to lose an inch of gained ground struggled as hard as she could to keep her power up and lay it into every one of her hits.

            Less than an instant after her punch, Buffy threw another, aimed at his left shoulder with as much if not more power to it.  This knocked the Trainer back around the other way.  She hit his other shoulder, then his upper torso, and then she started getting into it with her kicks.

            At each blow the blonde Slayer dealt the experienced and powerful warrior, he felt more and more pain to each blow being delivered.  _'Damn, she's strong,'_ he thought as she started kicking his upper torso and head when she could get a clear shot.  Then he mentally sighed.  _'But not strong enough.  She's using almost all of her energy just to lay some more pain into me.  This girl fights sloppy.  Who the hell trained her?'_

            Having had enough, Goku upped his speed the marginalist of a factor and caught Buffy's next punch in the palm of his left fist.  Then he stared her in the eye, and gave her a look that he saved only for those that _really_ annoyed him.

            When Goku caught her punch, Buffy realized that he was just playing with her, testing her to see if she could actually do any damage.  When he stared at her with dead eyes, eyes that were bottomless pits empty of all emotion, and at the center of that pit was an anger so . . . terrifying that Buffy nearly screamed and tried to run the other way.

            "Ow." Goku stated in a voice as dead and terrifying as his eyes.  Then he crushed every single bone and cartilage joint in her hand.  At that she did scream.  Mostly in pain though.

            Then he backhanded her so hard that her neck was actually torn away from her spine and skull, killing her instantly.  Goku dropped the lifeless corpse and sneered.  "Weakling," he hissed, wiping a drop of Buffy's blood from his face.

            "Nooooaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

            Goku turned at the shout and avoided Xander's meager attempt at a flying kick.  Goku wanted to keep up his harassment of Buffy, but Xander demanded his attention.  Almost literally.  Goku wasn't sure when Xander had drawn his sword, or when Xander's claims of being unable to lift it were forgotten, but he was mildly impressed as he easily ducked and dodged the sloppy and clumsy strokes that Xander was swinging at him.  He could even avoid it at normal speed.

            After several seconds of this, Goku asked Xander in a friendly, non-committal voice, "Xander, what's the point of this?  You're hardly strong enough to even hold that sword, let alone use it properly.  Buffy-" he was cut off momentarily by ducking forward under a high swing, "-thought she could take me.  I proved her wrong because the confidence her _luck_-" he stopped to emphasize his point, "was giving her went to her head and she thought that she actually had a hope of knocking me out.  It finally got so annoying," avoid a forward thrust, "that I decided to teach her a lesson.  Don't hit me unless you plan on hitting me, and meaning it."

            With that last statement, Goku caught Xander's katana between his forefinger and his thumb.  The trainer looked his student in the eye and told him in the same dead tone he had spoken to Buffy in, "I give few warnings Xander.  Count this as one of them."  Then he hit Xander so hard against the cheek that the human boy's neck broke in so many places it would be safe to say that it was shattered.

            After the last dead body hit the floor, there was a strange quiet, almost a…(J) a _deathly_ quiet about the room.  Goku looked around at his three pupils and noticed himself how quiet it had gotten.  He waited for approximately another seven seconds before saying aloud, "Oh man," he grimaced, covering his mouth with his hand in anxiety.  "THIS is boring.  Gotta teach myself not to kill them all at once."

            Just as Buffy, Xander and Giles were starting their impromptu training session, Willow was still in the Mage Tower, in the little concrete room, (she was surprised that one of the spells in the books she was reading allowed her to find out where she was and that the gray stone walls actually _were_ concrete) having been in it for over three hours already, and reading the last few lines of a rather large tome that looked more like it held canvas paintings rather than book pages.  When she finished, she quickly filed away the information she had absorbed from the book entitled, "Runes of Little Voodoo tricks."

            No, she isn't kidding.  Sometimes having a Universal Translator in you brain, basically letting you understand and potentially speak any language in existence, was a very useful thing.

            As she closed this final book of lessons, it turned to vapor and disappeared before her eyes.  The first time this happened Willow had totally wigged for all of a single minute, then she saw the usefulness of not leaving the books just lying around, getting in the way.  Smiling that she was one more step closer to her goal, Willow reached out for the next book to memorize that was always seemingly there without even looking.  When her hand grasped nothing but air and the wooden table, she looked up in surprise.

            The table was empty.

            "What the…" Willow started to protest before there was a flash of light and Arch Mage Amana Grael was standing before the table staring at the young witch.

            "Finished already are you?" she asked in a gentle probing tone.

            Willow was flabbergasted.  There should have been no way for her to go through all five hundred and twenty-five books that had been on this table when she first sat down at it.  "Uh…no!  I mean, I shouldn't be."  Pausing to gather her thoughts, Willow looked her trainer in the eye and asked, "Teacher, how long have I been in here?"

            Slightly worried about the answer, Willow almost jumped out of her skin in shock when Amana answered, "Roughly about three hours.  But don't worry Willow, the books wouldn't have disappeared if you did not truly read and study them all _very_ carefully."

            Willow started after that.  "Three hours!?  I've been in here reading for only _three hours?!_"

            Amana nodded and conjured a chair before her to sit across from Willow at the table.  "Now comes the hard part, young _Witch_.  I will now test you in everything that you possibly could have learned from those books.  Understand that this is not a test of wit or courage or knowledge.  This is a test of magic and to guarantee that you have truly learned what you had the potential to learn here.  Now, Willow, if you will please sit down, we can begin."

            Calming herself, Willow nodded and sat back down in her chair.  "Good.  Now, tell me the six varieties of ground demon that you will find on Trachea Prime in Universe 367 of Sector G9-N42?" Amana put forth.  Without even thinking about it, Willow gave her the correct answer.

            Less than thirty minutes later, Amana was struggling not to be in shock as Willow passed every single one of her tests.  Almost all of it was knowledge based, book type answers.  It seemed that books and knowledge was where Willow was strongest.  Only near the end did Amana ask for anything other than a verbal answer, and it was a demonstration of a focusing technique that Willow had memorized in a book on ancient forms of Yoga.  She had even tried it out herself before the test, using it to calm her nerves over the once overwhelming task of reading and getting through all of the books.

            Finally, the test was over.  And once again, Amana was in amazement.  Nobody, in her time at the Compound anyway, had _ever_ gotten through the knowledge room in less than an entire day.  She had even added to the books here because of Willow's comment on Voodoo and other darkish arts.  Having kept that in mind, Amana had filled her schedule, not expecting to have to bother with Willow again for the rest of the day.  So she decided to turn the youth back over to Goku to get her started on her physical training.

            "Well, Willow, this is almost surprising," Amana congratulated her as she stood.  She had to maintain the appearance of complete and utter control.  "Because you finished so early, I'll let you join you other friends in the Main Gym.  Goku should be there, putting them through the proverbial ringer I suppose."

            Both magic users giggled at that.  "Unfortunately, I have other business to attend to today, so I will see you either later this evening or tomorrow at the same time, do you understand?"

            Willow nodded silently, rounding the corner of the table to stand beside her teacher.  Then she paused as she asked her question.  "Well, I do have one question.  Am I done for today, I mean do I just go back to my room and do whatever?"

            Arch Mage Amana Grael smiled wickedly as she answered the red witch's question.  "No Willow.  Goku will be filling up the rest of your schedule with his aspect of your training.  Something important to remember from the _"__Book of magic__"_ is…"

            "Maintain thy body as with thy mind so as to keep thine wits and their power," Willow quoted from the mentioned book.  "I know, I know, I remember," she grumbled.  She ducked her head like any teenager hearing an oft-heard lecture, so she never saw the smile that graced the Arch Mage's face.

            "Right," was all the experienced wielder said before teleporting them both back to her office.  Waving a hand at the red circle on the wall, she activated the MTC.  Pointing at it, she ordered, "I've already programmed the MTC to take you to Goku and your friends current location.  Go ahead and step through Willow.  We'll continue this tomorrow unless I can get free time tonight.  But don't worry, I'll take care of it.  Go and be with your friends for the time.  Come the time, I'll be taking up _all_ of your time."

            Willow nodded and smiled a gracious grin at the blond woman before racing to the portal.  The second that she was through, the portal went back to its inactive state, leaving Amana alone in the room.  Sighing, she turned around and pressed a hidden button among the clutter of her desk and spoke to the air.  "Move up my appointment with Archer.  And cancel the dinners.  My new student is going to be requiring more of my attention than I had first anticipated."  The answering chime in the air told Amana that her message had been received, understood, and carried out.

            The words to describe Willow's feelings when she arrived on the other side of the MTC in the gym room where Goku had just finished with the little sparring match Buffy had started, do not exist in the English language.  And if they do, they belong in a dramatic horror novel or script.  But how would you feel if you saw two of your best friends lying on the floor, their heads bent at very inhuman angles, their faces and heads covered in their own blood and a man that was more of a father to you than your own was slumped in a similar fashion against the wall?

            Willow's eyes were immediately watering as she looked at the small amount of carnage that lay before her, at which the center of stood Goku, looking troubled.  "Wha…wha…whut-what happened here?" Willow quietly stuttered.

            Goku looked up in surprise.  "Oh!  Willow!  Uh, what are you doing here?" he asked.

            "Amana-uh, I mean Arch Mage Amana told me that I had finished earlier than she had expected.  She told me to come here and you would-" Willow stopped talking when something stranger than death began to happen in the room.

            Buffy and Xander's broken bodies were suddenly surrounded by a bright golden-yellow glow, highlighting every inch of their skin until it was so bright that Willow had to turn away and she couldn't see their bodies anymore.  In the next second, the golden light disappeared even faster than it had appeared in the first place and there were Buffy and Xander lying on the floor, groaning and complaining about something, but very, very much alive.

            Willow felt like fainting, but was prevented by Buffy's waking statement.  "_Ow_ yourself Goku!" she shouted at the Saiyan.  Xander, always the first to notice, immediately ran over to the young Vampire Slayer and asked in a panicked tone, "Buffy, are you all right?"

            Buffy rudely shoved off Xander's comforting hand and snapped at him, "I'm _fine_ Xander.  Thanks to our immortality." She muttered the last with as much sarcasm as she could muster at the Saiyan trainer.  Buffy stalked angrily away from the two taller dark-haired warriors.  She got about five steps before stopping upon seeing Willow standing there like she was about to have a heart attack or something.

            "Hey Will, when you'd get here?" Buffy asked casually, though inside her guts gave a slight lurch at seeing that worried frown in Willow's forehead.

            Willow, still in shock, started pointing at the floor where they had been just a minute before, stuttering, "What…but…I…you…what…?"  Buffy's eyes widened as she realized that Willow had seen them dead on the floor.  Immediately she moved forward to help her absolute best friend in the world.  "Oh god, Wills…" Buffy trailed off as she embraced the traumatized teen in her arms.  The second that the shorter Slayer was beside her, Willow began to break down from the emotional overload.

            Seeing this little drama play out in front of him, Goku rolled his eyes and groaned something about teenagers.  Noticing that Xander was still beside him, but his eyes locked to the female pair, Goku began to think of ways to actually get these kids motivated.  Admitted, it was their first day, but…well, hell.  He had been almost as bad, though he counted himself lucky that he was the only one to go through his training.

            Sighing, Goku realized the only way to get them through everything was to keep them busy.  Not give them enough time to think about things, to work out the pain, to realize how changed everything would be from this moment forth.  Clearing his throat loudly he managed to draw the girls' attention as well as Watcher's and Warrior X's.

            "Willow, I'm not sure if your Mage teacher explained everything to you, but I'm sure that you remember that the Powers promised you immortality?" Goku asked the elfin redhead.

            Taking a deep breath and extricating herself from Buffy, Willow nodded to her best friend and turned to look at Goku.  Goku was slightly impressed, but his expression showed nothing.  Willow nodded and spoke with very little tremor in her voice.  "My magics Trainer is the 2nd Arch Mage, Amana Grael.  For some reason she hadn't planned on me finishing my studies this early, so I have her consent to spend the rest of my day here, with you guys.  As for the whole immortality thing, I think I just got my proof, huh?"

            Scratching the back of his head, Goku grinned sheepishly saying, "Uh, yeah.  Look Willow I'm sorry about what you saw coming in here, but…well Buffy started it!"

            The accused looked pointedly back at the accuser and shouted, "I did…well, ok so I did, but you didn't have to kill us, _again_!" she finished much quieter than when she began.  Willow's eyes shot wide open.  "Again?"

            Goku shrugged.  "It's what I call sparring.  Best way to train somebody in my opinion.  Rather than learn only theory and technique, you actually fight it out, learning how your body can react to the techniques and how well it works.  I only get lethal when my opponents get lethal, or too annoying in Buffy's case.  I've already warned X and Slayer, now I'm warning you and the rest of your team.  Don't attack me unless you are prepared to be attacked, and only hit me if you plan on hitting me and _meaning_ it.  I don't really care if you were swinging your hardest Slayer.  Lesson 1, don't waste your energy by attacking just to cause one little more bite of pain.  Always go for either the kill, or the end of the fight.  Decide that before you even face your opponent.  Are you going to kill him, are you going to beat him, or are you going to embarrass him?"

            "Embarrass?  Like you're doing to us?" Buffy snorted.

            "No, what I'm doing to you is called 'feeling you out'!" Goku corrected by getting in her face, though it would be more chest to face.  "Normally the first week is spent in such, but your schedules, as I have said are a little different.  Normally we'd just be talking about whatever while I showed you a few basic moves and you showed me all of yours.  But no, I have to get you guys into a shape your bodies have never been in before!  I have to get you stronger, faster, more powerful than you can imagine at this moment, and I have to do it at an accelerated pace.  Now I am sorry if you are not having fun Buffy, but you knew from the moment that the Powers explained everything to you that this was not _supposed_ to be fun!  It's life and death and if I have to kill every single one of you a billion times over to teach you how to stay alive, then by the Powers I will kill you one billion and one times!"

            After this tirade, the Slayer team hung their heads in embarrassment, until their leader, Slayer, decided that she had had enough feeling sorry for herself as an excuse to be a bitch.  All the reason she needed was standing right in front of her.

            Gathering herself, Buffy stepped forward to face Goku and looked up into his eyes.  He saw the fire there; she saw the arrogant determination in his.  "So what's next?" Buffy asked.

            "Lunch?" Buffy asked for what had to be the tenth time as she stood in line behind Goku on the floating barge called the "Moveable Mess".

            "Yes," Goku answered once again, "Lunch.  And a big one at that.  You've got to understand something here kids.  You aren't normal anymore.  And I don't mean because of your secrets or whatever powers or roles you played before.  I mean because you are here, and you are one of us.  One of Good."

            "Don't you mean one of the 'good guys'?" Xander asked from behind Willow over the din.

            Goku shrugged and grabbed the tray that materialized in front of him before answering.  "Everybody's a good guy at some point in their lives Xander.  But being one of Good, on the side of Good in the Tournament of the Powers, the Tournament of Good and Evil, well, that just adds to it.  We leave out the guy's part for several reasons, first and foremost being language.  Second for discrimination purposes, and third because we're all on the side of Good, no matter what we are or were before hand."

            "Getting back to how we're not normal anymore?" Willow grabbed her tray after Buffy.

            Goku nodded and received a piece of plastic with a number on it and a PADD on his tray.  He turned back to Willow and the rest.  "It's our serving number and menu.  I have a personalized menu, but each of you will get one PADD, these gray slates.  I'll explain later at our table, but for right now keep the line moving."  They did.

            "In answer to your question Willow," Goku continued after Giles had extricated from the line and was following close behind the Trainer through the loud and boisterous crowd, "Training affects different species in different ways.  Sometimes even affecting individuals different from the rest.  When I was growing up, I liked to get into fights and was rather athletic, but not into sports.  Other than that and being stronger than just about everybody else, I was a regular kid.  When I started training in the Martial Arts, I just got stronger.  When I came here, I got in touch with my Saiyan heritage, my roots."

            They sat down at a round table that was empty and had just enough space for the five of them and seemed to be in the center of a space surrounded by filled tables.  "Something that Saiyans are very different than humans is, a higher metabolic rate.  I age actually a little slower than the average male my age, minus the whole immortality deal, but my energy levels are always in need of replenishing, and my body needs constant workout to stay at maximum strength.  I won't become a weakling, but if I stop training altogether, I still lose strength."

            "Higher metabolic rate? What do you mean?" Giles asked, clearly confused.

            Goku thought for several moments before coming to a feasible explanation.  "Giles, you know how Special Ops Soldiers in the Marines, Seals, and SAS eat?"  Giles, after a hesitation, slowly nodded.  "Saiyans eat five times more than that, just as fast.  In half the time." He added.

            Goku didn't have time to see everyone's shocked faces as he turned as the robotic waiter, little more than a box-screen with two multi-jointed arms hanging from the ceiling, came rolling their way.

            "Ah, Cecil!" Goku called, grabbing the robot's attention.  It rolled over right away and stopped just above the outside of their table, waiting for their orders.  "Tell you what, I'll have my number 5 special please.  My trainees here will have whatever has been prepared on their own menus.  Please look under Slayer, Witch, Watcher, and Warrior X."

            A moment later, the black screen blinked to life and green lines shaped into a digital face answered with a horrible French accent, "Of course sir.  And, may I ask, how many servings will you be requiring today?"

            "Oh, uh, just one each for them," Goku answered.  He seemed to think a little more before finishing with, "And I'll have six servings please Cecil."

            Immediately all noise in the Moveable Mess, save that of the hover engines and a dropping utensil or two somewhere, just stopped.  Buffy and the others looked around, finding their table to be the center of attention.  Or rather Goku was the center of attention.

            The robot too seemed to be staring.  "Are-are, are you _sure_ that you truly need _six_ servings sir?"  To cover up his blunder in etiquette, the robot hastily added, "Because of health issues that is sir."

            Goku nodded and handed Cecil his PADD.  "Six servings of Number five," he ordered.

            Silently, the robot took the offered PADD and rolled back towards the kitchen to prepare and get the food.  The Slayerettes stared after the robot, some of the other eyes in the room following it as well, before seeing that Goku was still the center of attention.

            "Uh, Goku?" Buffy asked.  "Why is everyone staring at us?  Or rather, at you?"

            Without looking up from the table, Goku answered, "You're about to get your answer Buffy.  Yes, you are about to get your answer."  Five seconds later, the biggest creature the humans had seen since The Powers That Be came right up behind Goku.

            Size was the first thing anybody would notice about this guy.  Second thing was that he was purple, and alien, and had a _very_ large mouth from which two tusks emerged prominently.  The third thing that Buffy, at the least, noticed was his dress.  It was nearly identical to what she, Xander and Goku were wearing, except stretched almost four times as big.  And no boots.  Instead he had a large black belt, though on him it looked just right, with a strange high-tech looking belt buckle.

            Buffy looked him up and down, batting her right eyebrow at the strange fighter.  Well strange to her, who had never before seen something non-human that hadn't been a demon or something to kill.  Wanting to stretch herself, Buffy opened up with her newly discovered sixth sense.  She was nearly overwhelmed by the onslaught her brain received from the large number, along with the large sources of power her sense detected in the small room.

            The moment that Buffy opened up with her sensing ability, Goku and almost every other fighter in the room immediately gave her sharp looks.  Buffy was too overwhelmed to notice, trying to make sense of the new data her mind was attempting to computate, just staring off into space at nothing in particular.

            Goku closed his eyes and sighed.  If the others at the table didn't know any better, they'd think he was embarrassed by something.

            "**_Hey Girl!_**" the purple warrior behind Goku growled in a completely inhuman language.  "**_You'd better reign in your curiosity if you know what's good for you!  Nobody here likes being focused on too much!  Especially me!_**"

            Buffy finally figured out her new ability.  She focused back on Goku, the only other power she was familiar with, which gave her perspective enough to realize that she was practically catatonic sitting at the table.  Shaking herself and physically shaking her head to clear the molasses that had creeped in, Buffy blinked hard before looking back to Goku.

            Catching his hard glare, Buffy gulped and hastily apologized.  "I'm sorry.  I…just was trying to orient myself.  Well, come on!  You only taught me how to use my Slayer sense like this yesterday, you expect me to _not_ try and use it on my own?"

            "Actually I fully expect you to try stretching yourself," Goku responded, much to the group's surprise.  "However, I would appreciate it if you could allow etiquette to dictate your actions a little more.  Basically Buffy, what you just did was the equivalent of going up to each and every person in this room and put your head on their shoulders to listen what they were talking or thinking about.  Everyone here can sense powers and power levels, and thus are also sensitive to detecting others using that same ability on them.  Very rude Buffy." He summarized.

            Buffy gulped one more time, this time lowering her head and blushing furiously, now understanding her error.  "Sorry," she apologized once again, much quieter though.

            After this, most of the room turned back to their meals or conversations, now the topic of subject being primarily Goku and his new recruits.  Yet the huge purple warrior behind them remained.  Goku let the creature wait another whole minute before addressing it by name.

            "What is it Gortung?" he asked impatiently.

            The purple alien, Gortung, grunted and then walked around so that it was now behind Xander, but facing Goku.  "**_I'd just like to know Goku, as I'm sure most in here would, what's so special about first day recruits that you actually require '_six_' number five's.  You only eat so much when preparing for a Tournament or in the sixth week of training for a truly gifted warrior.  What makes these guys so special that you are so hungry?_**"

            The newbies were left shaking their heads in wonder.  Their Universal Translators gave them a flawless translation, but at the same time gave them the information that some of the meanings had been lost or changed along with the word as the languages between Gortung's native and English were just too great for comparison.

            Goku just shrugged and stared back at the huge, vicious looking fighter.  "They show a strong potential.  That and their team leader has asked that I stop going so slow on them.  In order to do my best, I need to be at full energy.  Anything else is either none of your business, or emplaced by the Council.  Any other questions Gortung?"

            Growling slightly, the large purple, tusked fighter gave a negative indication and rounded the table to go back to his seat.  On his way he "accidentally" bumped Buffy, knocking her into the table painfully.

            Failing to reign in her temper, which seemed to have magnified since her devastating and embarrassing losses to Goku, Buffy jumped up from her seat and shouted, "Hey!" and shoved the purple mountain away.  Buffy stopped the second after she realized what she'd done, as Gortung, growling louder and more ominously than any vampire could ever hope to copy, stood up and glared threateningly back at her.

            Buffy glared right back, just as hard, not knowing what else to do.  Thinking that Goku would stop her, or maybe even save her if it came to that, Buffy walked up to the huge alien, as it did to her, until they were right in front of each other.

            Buffy almost cricked her neck looking Gortung in the eye, but she didn't back down.  Neither did he.

            "**_What did you say?_**" Gortung growled out.

            Smirking, "I said, you bulbous mountain of putrid worm stench, watch were you lay your sasquatch copied appendages you call feet, and keep your ugly _purple_ shit-faced _ass_ out of my face!"  She continued the insult, following with her Translator's suggestions, by pinching her nose and open teeth grinning up at the fighter, which was the same as giving it the finger.

            Growling in a way that the humans thought sounded extraordinarily like laughter, which their translators then confirmed, Gortung extend its hand, with seven fingers that it was large enough for, and pushed Buffy slightly with one of its fingers.  She rolled with the soft impact, like if Xander had play-punched her shoulder.  She smiled genuinely back at it, which it understood due to its own translator, and then she shoved him back.  He hardly moved.

            The laughing growl increasing, Gortung finger-shoved her again, with a little more force, causing her to take a step back.  Her smile now as fake as her good mood, Buffy reached up and forcefully shoved the creature in the abdomen, surprising everybody but Goku when it too had to take a step back from the hit.  Its growl now lost some of its humor and it full hand shoved against Buffy.  She nearly rammed the table behind her, seven feet away.

            Repressing the urge to growl some herself, Buffy got back up, stalked up to her current opponent and using both hands, shoved against his chest with as much force as she could muster.  She surprised even herself when he flew back until he hit the far wall, over the tables and various patrons between it's starting and stopping places.

            To further her surprise, when Gortung didn't immediately get back up, nobody went to help him, nobody attacked her on his behalf, and in fact, nobody looked like they cared at all.  Everybody was just sitting around, either eating or talking with their neighbors.  Snorting, Buffy turned around and walked back to her table just as the food was arriving.

            Sitting down, Buffy noticed that there were no less than five of the robot screens hovering about the table, and the only one giving her looks over what she'd just done was Willow, who was staring at her in concern.

            "Buffy, are you all right?" the redhead asked.

            Buffy nodded and responded shortly, "Yeah.  So, Goku, what's for lunch?  I'm starving enough as it is."  The Saiyan just looked to the lead robot for answer.

            Immediately plates began to be set before them.  Buffy first, got what looked like baked chicken and several vegetables, Willow got some tofu looking junk, and Giles a cheeseburger and fries.  Xander actually got a tray of food, which caused everybody at the table to stare at him when it was sat down.  On the central plate were four Twinkies, three Hohos, and a slice of extra cheese pizza.  There were several other plates of various types of deserts and cakes too.

            When Xander noticed them all staring he gave them a look that said while he also asked aloud, "What?"

As for Goku, the first plate sat in front of him held something like a large juicy steak, but not cooked too much.  The other seven plates held noodles, filling the plate to the brim and at least several inches high.  The others stared as all of the plates were set before their trainer.  "Now I see why everybody was staring.  I'd stare too if I heard somebody was going to eat that much." Xander commented.

            Goku looked up, "You ain't seen nothing yet," he said just before he began to eat.

            Seventeen hours later, the group was walking, actually it was more sympathetic to dragging themselves through the MTC into the Training gym, the room where their day started out in.

            "I hurt.  I am hurt.  There are parts of me that hurt that I didn't know _could_ hurt," whined Willow as she stumbled against the wall and slid to the floor.

            Xander followed her in similar condition and slumped down beside her.  For once he had nothing to say, which was surprising because he had spent most of the training talking, making nonsensical and sarcastic comments, and complaining that it was impossible.  But he still did it.

            Giles, looking wearied and worn, came after them but managed to remain on his feet.  Then Goku, looking the same as ever, and Buffy, who looked tired but for a reason beyond the lesser mortals, happy.  In fact she looked so good as to say chipper.  Xander and Willow decided that they didn't like this.

            "Buff, you usually hate training," Xander mentioned from the floor, "What is so great about this that you are now actually _enjoying_ this?"

            "Yes, I quite agree," Giles added.  "Normally I have to threaten and lecture you to get any cooperation of any sort.  What makes this so much more different?"

            "Yeah Buffy, why are you so chipper after all of that?" Willow whined quietly.

            Buffy smiled, but tiredly.

"I don't know," she said honestly.  "I guess it's like you said Goku, I'm finally getting challenged enough that I'm getting in touch with my inner-Slayer.  I'll admit guys, I feel just as tired as all of you look, but I also feel kinda, I don't know…good about it."

"It's understandable Buffy," Giles commented.  "The Slayer would naturally adapt to such a strenuous ordeal, but I still find it remarkable that you aren't affected more by the strength training you've undergone."

Buffy just shrugged and just kind of stood there.  Goku meanwhile was setting up something with his Global again, but nobody really noticed.  It had become commonplace in regards to the dark-haired trainer enough that they finally figured that if he wanted them to know it, they'd find out eventually.

Suddenly Giles grunted and had to sit down almost immediately.  Xander and Willow, already on the floor just stayed there and Buffy found her breath becoming labored once again.  She had learned that it only happened when Goku had increased the gravity, requiring her lungs and bodies' need for more oxygen.

"So, increasing the gravity again Goku?" Buffy asked.

Goku nodded absently and tapped something on his Global.  Finally he seemed satisfied and closed the device and walked to the center of the room.  Buffy was about to follow, but she noticed that her friends did not really want to move, so she turned back to help them.  Reaching for Willow's hand she added as encouragement, "Come on, up you go!"  Grabbing both teenagers' hands, pulling them up with her subdued strength.

Groaning with great complaint, they managed to get to their feet, and immediately wanted to go back down.  "Ah, ah, ah, no you don't.  I'm doing this, your doing this, Giles is doing this.  Complain all you want, but your still doing it." Buffy ordered.

"Can I at least take off the jacket?" Xander begged.

"No!" Buffy and Goku answered simultaneously.  They shared a look at their agreement, but quickly moved on.

Giles managed to get up on his own and the four lined up in front of Goku in the center of the room.  Buffy felt what he was planning, but decided against comment.  "All right, here's what we're going to do.  So far I've had you focus on primarily strength and endurance training, the weights, the higher gravities, and the rest of it.  Now I'm more or less going to be teaching you the basic techniques.  Now, as you learned this morning, they maybe obvious and simplistic, but with repetition, not to mention when you focus on speed and accuracy they can quickly become very important.  Buffy, this time no helping.  If you think you're finished, then just keep going.  This isn't a competition, this is getting you all to the same level of fighting that you can at the least face off against each other and come to a draw."

"First, ready position," Goku showed them what was basically a modified horse stance, keeping the feet at just outside of shoulder width, and right arm drawn back by his sides, his left brought up in a guard position before his head.  They copied him as near as they could.

"Xander, right punch," he ordered.  Xander hesitated, not understanding.  Then he punched his right fist straight out, like they had done that morning for their first waking hours.

"Good," Goku complimented.  "Now I want you to keep doing that until I tell you to stop, understand?"  Xander grimaced and almost made a face, but nodded and did as ordered.

"Giles, go meditate," Goku ordered.

Batting an eyebrow, Giles just shrugged and turned around and went to the MTC and told it to take him to their quarters.  "Hey!" Buffy shouted.  "Where's he going?"  Goku glared hard at her, but answered anyway.

"He requires a different training regimen Buffy.  The sword trains him.  I only train him to work with the rest of you.  He needs to meditate with it at regular intervals or…something dangerous might happen."

"Dangerous how?" Buffy asked, ignoring Xander beside her who was still punching away.

"I can't tell you," he reluctantly confessed.  "At least not yet anyway.  I'm sure that Giles might be able to better explain himself, but just be aware that he needs to meditate every now and again.  It's kind of important for the Blades for some reason."

Buffy grimaced, but for the moment accepted this argument.  She'd had enough of them with the trainer today to last them all for a year.  She nodded and waited for his next instructions.

"Willow, I know that you are kind of new to this, and I really hate sounding like a drill sergeant, but I need to do pushups until you drop.  Xander and Buffy are both stronger than you, so we're going to have to spend more time focusing on that and endurance with you, okay?"

Sighing, and resigning herself to her new fate, Willow nodded and got down on the ground and started pushing herself up in ten times normal gravity, where her arm muscles got ten times the workout.

"Buffy, attack," Goku ordered.

Slayer didn't so much as hesitate.  The second the word left his lips, Goku was dodging and ducking under her tired hits and kicks.  This went on for at least thirty more minutes, and Willow had surprised herself by continuing her own exercise.

"Xander, change arms!" Goku suddenly ordered, ducking under a high kick from Slayer.

The training session continued in this fashion for another ten minutes, which is when Willow finally dropped to the ground and could no longer feel her arms.  Willow's sudden weakness caused Slayer to freeze for a moment, a moment that Goku used to punch her, "lightly", across the face.

She turned her head slowly back to him, her lip cut, and glared at the one-eighth Saiyan.  They continued to spar, though Buffy was seriously distracted until Willow rolled over onto her side and tried to get back up.  She couldn't.

Finally, Goku was tired of Slayer's distraction and ordered Xander to help the redhead up.  He immediately did so, and was about to continue his punching the air, when Goku stopped Buffy's attacks and indicated that for the moment the fight was over.

"Xander, you take over sparring with Buffy.  Don't worry about hurting each other, just do your best, and Buffy, if you want to you can teach him some moves.  I'm going to take Willow to the clinic to get her arms healed up real quick.  Don't worry you two, it's nothing serious, just some basic relaxation and massage techniques." He explained.

Buffy started a little and asked timidly, "Uh, not…"Massage Therapy"?"

Goku shook his head as he easily picked the small girl up.  "No, it shouldn't be that bad, just something to relieve the pain and help her muscles to grow properly.  That's all."

"OK, just, bring her back safely, you know?" Buffy granted wistfully.

Goku nodded and Willow mumbled something about Buffy not worrying, but nobody really heard it.

Xander and Buffy just stood there in the training room for several moments staring after their best friend in their entire existence.  Ever since he had first laid eyes on her, Xander had wanted to be alone in a room with a sexy, sweaty Buffy.  Unfortunately, he was too tired, too heavy, and too worried about Willow to take full advantage of the situation, such as it was.

"Um, Buffy, as much as I would _love_ to take a break…" he left the statement hanging.

It seemed to snap the blond slayer out of the trance she had fallen into.  "Yeah," she mumbled.  They turned to face each other and Xander for the first time since Buffy had learned that she was going to die at the hands of the Master, Xander saw doubt, confusion, and fear in her eyes.  Seeing such made him instinctually want to do two things; take her in his arms and tell her everything was going to be okay and be the emotional support his friend needed at that moment, and the second, beat it out of her.  He considered the place.  And he chose.

"Well, way I see it, we can do two things," he found his mouth saying without his full consent, "One, we can sit on our asses and wait for Goku and Willow to come back and Goku might actually through a tantrum, or he might just give us that disappointed pity look."  Xander noticed that Buffy's eyes flashed with anger when he mentioned the look Goku had given them all numerous times that day.  "Or two, we can do as he says and beat the holy livin' crap out of each other."

Buffy looked up at the 'normal' guy in her life.  Ever since she had met him he had done everything in his power to endear himself to her.  Make jokes, put himself in mortal danger, just to help her, and help Giles and Willow with the research thing.  He had done the emotional support thing too, when necessary.  Buffy thanked heaven above for her friends while wondering what she could have done to deserve them in her life.

Buffy smiled boldly at Xander's comment and nodded.  They approached each other until they were within short striking distance of one another.  Buffy nodded to him, he nodded back.

"All right Xander, I'm going to swing at you, you block.  I'll pull back, and then you'll swing a punch, and I'll block.  For right now, at least until you get better at fighting, we'll go with that, kay?" Buffy explained, not wanting to hurt her friend, either emotionally or physically.

Xander nodded and put himself in the 'ready' position Goku had shown them.

Buffy swung a slow, but fast enough to still be one, right punch at Xander's jaw.  His left arm shot up faster than she expected and successfully blocked it.  She pulled her arm back and waited for the dark-haired youth's move.

She was genuinely surprised when his left arm shot out from the side faster than she intended, but her instincts were sharp enough to bring her own arm out to block it.  Xander pulled back his arms and immediately raised his right arm to block the incoming punch from the slayer.  Not wanting to let her get one up on him, he shot his own hit out just as fast.  She blocked.  So it progressed, Buffy just going with a normal routine with a punching bag, hitting as fast as she could and blocking the return strikes, which came just as fast.

Xander found himself actually enjoying the light sparring occurring between him and his crush.  So much so that he realized that she was lightening up on him.  Her punches were just the lightest bit softer and her blocks were waiting until the last second to stop him.  Feeling resentful, Xander decided to see if maybe he really _could_ give the other warrior a workout.

Buffy was surprised when Xander's punches started to come faster, and landing with a little more force, and she was moving fast enough to recognize that his blocks were waiting until the last second or so to stop her hits.  It was at this moment that Buffy remembered what she had learned about Xander earlier that day in the workout gym.  He had only been using about half his power so far.  Grinning despite herself, she wondered if _she_, not Goku, would be the one to bring her lanky dark-haired Xander shaped friend to his full potential.

Xander noticed Buffy's grin, and he realized with a shock that she was enjoying herself.  He recalled Goku and Buffy saying something about the only time that they felt fulfilled was when they were getting stronger?  Was that right?  Well then, maybe giving Buffy a more than decent workout could count as their first date?  Or maybe not.  But still, since Slayer was grinning, Warrior X decided to give her something to grin about.

Xander, conserving his energy by focusing it, started to ignore the pattern they had developed into and just started to try and hit the slayer as much and in as many places on her gorgeous body as possible.  Buffy's eyes widened at the change in tactics, but her instincts and training allowed her to adapt nearly effortlessly.  She quickly realized what Xander's objective was, though she didn't understand the reasoning behind it.

Buffy opened up with her sixth sense, feeling out Xander's budding power.  She was amazed at how easy it had become for her, and how quickly she found his.  In truth it was not far behind hers and was steadily growing, but she was still far stronger than the boy.  She felt him accessing his power, raising it, relatively, higher than she had forced her own, in her rage-filled attack on Giles earlier.  She discovered though _how_ he was doing it too.  He was focusing his energy, conserving it and only bringing it to full out as he finished his strikes, allowing him to save his overall energy for more hits or later endurance.

She was amazed at how well Xander was handling himself, even blocking her own wild blows now.  She then thought of trying what Xander was doing, focusing her energy, not just letting it all out in one single moment to fuel all of her movements, but to hold back until just before her strikes would land to power her hits.

The warrior could almost immediately sense the change in his opponent.  One second she had been scrambling to adapt, and had easily done so.  Several moments later, she slowed in her own hits as she studied him.  He didn't really mind, too focused on the next hit or block to care.  And in the next moment, she seemed to relax, as she had been before he started focusing on wilder attacks, when they were just easing into it.

Xander was confused for a brief moment.  He wanted to be the one to actually give Buffy what she wanted, and right now at this moment that was giving her the best workout she'd ever had.  Yet he couldn't deny that when he had changed tactics all of a sudden, she had been working much harder, therefore more workout.  So in order to give her what she wants, he would have to try even harder on his end of the fight.  Here's where the conflict comes from though, he doesn't want to hurt Buffy.  Well, he knows that he probably _couldn't_ hurt Buffy, even if he did try, but he doesn't even want to try and hurt her.  He momentarily flashes back on the moment that he once upon a time had Buffy actually backed into a corner.

It was during the Hyena possession thing.  He still hadn't told anybody but Giles that he remembered every excruciatingly embarrassing detail of what had happened to him.  What he hadn't told them though, what he hadn't told anybody and had taken nearly a year to discover, was that he still had the hyena strength, the senses, everything that he'd had when possessed.  He knew he _wasn't_ still possessed, but he couldn't deny that his senses of smell and hearing had dramatically improved since the incident.

The strength aspect he hadn't noticed until he and Willow had started patrolling with Buffy on a regular basis.  He could always smell the undead approaching, and could always hear Buffy and Willow's heartbeats as they fought, but the fact that the couple of times that he dared to actually fight a vampire one on one, he shocked himself by actually causing the vampire pain with his hits.  He even managed to take some of the harder knocks easier than he had ever remembered taking hits like that before.  And somehow nobody but him had noticed.

Realizing that for once he could back Buffy into the same corner and she wouldn't run away, and might respect him for his new strength, Xander came to the undeniable conclusion that he had to fight full on, no holding back, it was time to let the hyena go.

Buffy was a bit shocked as she blocked two rapid punches from Xander, he started to laugh.  Not just any laugh though.  One that sent chills up and down her spine, and had once given her a week of nightmares, though mild in comparison to her others.  The laugh of the hyena.  The one time that Xander had actually been scary and had nearly been strong enough to beat her.

His laughter was short lived.  Only meant as an outward representation of the giddiness he felt as he finally let go of his inhibitions of strength and fear.  Then he started actually trying to hit the Slayer.  He began to watch her, even as they moved and blocked one another, looking for the weaknesses in her defense.  He found several and immediately took advantage of them.

Buffy was scared.  She was scared of the fact that she was scared.  Because she was scared of Xander, and he was the one person, other than her mother, in her life that she _wasn't_ supposed to be scared of.

His hits became harder than iron, faster than she would have thought possible, and he stopped just wild swinging.  He began to target her weaknesses, where she was slow to block or left entirely open.  He managed two very hard hits on her abdomen and a third a glancing blow off her right shoulder.

Buffy then recognized what he was doing.  He was fighting.  He was intimidating her, studying her technique, finding the weaknesses, and taking full advantage of them while maintaining his own defense.  Buffy got angry at that.

She was the Slayer.  She was the strong one, the chosen one, she was the fighter!  Not Xander!  Xander was just the guy that she liked to hang out with, he made jokes, he hit on her, and he even fawned over her a little.  But he wasn't better than her!

Buffy wasn't sure where this line of thought came from, but she did know it made her blood boil.  It gave her an anger that she had never associated with being the Slayer.  It made her want to win.

Feeling out with all her senses, Buffy noted with a subdued note of shock, since her primary focus was bent on beating Xander, that Xander was going _full_ power.  He had somehow accessed his full power that she had sensed in him.  She had done what she had set out to do, now all she had to do was survive the encounter and still win the fight.

She studied Xander's form as he threw a punch at her face and she blocked it.  In the next moment, her right arm flashed out and knocked the warrior for a lulu.  He staggered back from the blow, but he wasn't bleeding yet.  Smiling dangerously, Xander laughed again and kicked Buffy in the stomach.  She took the blow but didn't fall back, though she did have to bend over from it.

Xander waited patiently, for three seconds, before Buffy leaped up and snap kicked at his jaw.  He ducked under it, barely, and punched his arm where the Slayer would land.  She caught the arm, but missed the punch coming from the other one and he got her across the jaw.  After that, first blood was called and they began to seriously come close to killing each other.  They fought like their lives depended on it and neither was willing to give an inch.

The fight continued until Goku came back, with a healed Willow who was groaning and begging to go back to the clinic as soon as the heavy gravity took its effect on her.  When she saw the fight however, all her concerns were suddenly for her two best friends, who looked very much like they were desperately trying to kill each other.

"Buffy!  Xander!" she screamed, hoping to make them stop.  Instead Buffy just high kicked Xander's head so his neck snapped dangerously backwards.

Goku put his hand on the young witch's shoulder to stop her from running into the brawl that had developed between the two friends.  "Stop Willow," Goku ordered.  "They have to work this out.  Whether that be limits of training, or whatever emotional issues they're dealing with.  You know it's almost natural.  I've noticed Xander's crush on Buffy.  She doesn't seem to really reciprocate his feelings.  Add to that that she's stronger than him and nothing he seems to do ever gets her attention, I'd say that he resents her.  As for Buffy, she's been holding back practically all day.  I don't know if it was because of all of you or if she truly doesn't know how strong she is, but right now she's giving almost all she can give to really fight Xander and keep from killing him outright."

He stopped and looked at the worried redhead beside him, "Something you have to understand Willow, we here don't take death as seriously as you've been raised and learned to view it.  It's just a part of training, and while unpleasant, almost as common cramps in training.  The only time we ever take death seriously is in the Tournament.  We never, _ever_, joke about the Tournament.  Not even with Champions.  In anything else, death is nothing.  Death is easy.  Death, Willow, has been cheated."

Willow stared at the fight in front of her, listening with only a half an ear to what Goku was telling her.  It wasn't until she saw Xander hit Buffy so hard that the Slayer actually had to take a step back, and absorb the retaliating kick the same way that Buffy would have, that Willow began to realize that Xander was getting his wish.  He was becoming just as strong as Buffy and Angel.  He could win the Slayer's heart if he could prove to her that he was just as good.  Willow wondered briefly if she still had any chance whatsoever to win Xander's heart.

Willow got her answer when Buffy backhanded the youth so hard that he actually flew against the wall.  Not a chance in hell.  What surprised Willow even further was that Buffy didn't let up on Xander when she knocked him away.  She took a running start and then tried to jump kick his slumped body against the wall.  Fortunately he rolled out of the way in time, and then he took advantage by side-kicking the Slayer when she landed.

Buffy acted like she didn't even feel it, instead forcing Xander on the defensive with various punch/kick combos.  Willow was horrified when she managed to catch glimpses of her friends' faces.  Both were smeared with blood, and while Xander's was still bleeding from a cut on his cheek and his possibly broken nose, Buffy's was equally thick red from her lip and nose.

Finally Willow couldn't stand to just sit back and watch anymore.  Turning on Goku she glared him full throttle with the "Resolve Face".  "Aren't you going to stop them?!" she screeched.  "I don't care about your views on death, but . . . their…they're _killing_ each other!!  They're best friends!  They shouldn't be trying to kill each other!  This is brutal, and, and, and…and…its wrong!"

The glare Goku turned on Willow blasted her "Resolve Face" out of the water and into subatomic particles.  "You want them to stop Willow, stop them yourself.  Until Buffy comes up and asks me, again, 'What next?' I'm content to let them beat each other into whatever bloody pulps their bodies can fit into.  It teaches them endurance and how to take hits with the body.  It'll help in the end, trust me on that Willow.  But if you want them to stop this, you're going to have to stop them on your own."

Willow's resolve doubled at the challenge as she stared back under the intense look of her Trainer.  When she turned back to the two she wanted to help, though, she started to feel a bit of doubt.  Sucking it in, Willow ran as fast as she could, which in the heavy gravity wasn't as fast as she'd have liked, her intent to stop the fight in progress.

Yet the very moment that she got within range to be of any effect, Xander's fist, _not_ on the way towards Buffy, struck out and solidly connected with the girl's face.  Willow fell back, more in shock that her best friend had just hit her than in pain from the blow.  She thought he hadn't meant it, but the next moment, while Buffy was backing off a bit after a rather hard hit from the warrior, he turned to her, and grinned darkly.  Then he laughed.

Recognizing the laugh, and feeling identical feelings that Buffy had, Willow just fell into the ready stance, understanding that her words would not reach her friend while he was in this state.  He just laughed again and snapped out a kick at her head.  She barely dodged it in time and moved forward to punch him in the face.  Instead his left hand just appeared in front of her nose and backhanded her with the force of a homerun softball.  In short, _hard._

Willow knew her nose was broken immediately as she staggered back from the surprise blow.  "OWWWW!!" she screeched, her hand automatically going to cover the wound.  X just laughed and was about to taunt her, but Slayer had other ideas.

The moment that Willow's screech reached her ear, Buffy felt a burning sensation form deep in her chest and a stark fear ran ice through her veins.  The next sight she saw was X, still laughing like a hyena, stalking closer to the injured redhead.  She didn't think, she just moved.

Xander wasn't sure what was happening.  One second he had been about to make a one-liner about girls being wusses, the next he knew only pain.  Buffy had suddenly kicked him in his chest, followed instantly by two punches to his face, a kick to the small of his back, and a knee to his head, knocking him back at least three feet.

Willow entertained thoughts, going along with the current level of insanity, of Buffy suddenly turning on her and beating her until she really was little more than a pile of flesh and bones.  Instead, she and Goku were somewhat surprised to see her go back after Xander.  She almost dived on top of him, grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket and dragging him to his feet.

Any defense that X could have mounted was utterly wasted in the next second as Slayer brought her knee upwards for another attack.  This time in an area far more sensitive to Xander's position.  Goku actually winced, feeling sympathy for the other male.  Willow just stared in disbelief, her broken nose forgotten.

As for X, well he gave the typical reaction and every single cell of fight left him.  Slayer just stood over him as she let him slump to the ground, cupping his crotch as though she would dare to hit him there again.  Instead she just wiped the blood from her chin.  Her own blood the startling realization came to her.  Suddenly, all of the pains, hurts, bruises, and cuts Xander had inflicted on her during their "sparring" match was screaming out their agonies.

A hissing noise could be heard.  Buffy wondered what it could be, looking around the room for the source.  After several moments, they all realized it was Xander, trying to talk.  He managed to gasp out a few more breaths of air, but couldn't do much more than that.

Buffy began to panic that she had actually hurt him.  Yet one look at his crumpled form told her that she indeed had injured him, it was the fact he wasn't speaking that had her so worried.  "Xan…" she croaked, her own voice failing her.  She tried again, "Xander?" a little better, "Are-are you…OK?"

He managed to spare enough energy to lift one hand from his crotch to wave the blond Slayer closer to him.  She hesitated for but a second, her slayer instincts telling her that he might be trying to ambush her, but she ignored them.  She knelt down beside him, worry evident in her expression.  "Xander?" she asked again, her face a foot and a half from his.

The look of pain that had been on his face suddenly evaporated like the air and before Buffy could recognize the change, he grabbed her with an iron grip around the throat and pulled back his right leg.  He then kicked her with enough force to knock her into the far wall, over ten feet away.  "Gotchya," X exclaimed as he leapt to his feet.

Xander then turned to Willow, and stopped.  He was shocked to see the blood on her face.  Flowing from her broken nose.  A broken nose he had given her.  He almost stopped the fight right then and there, but Buffy literally demanded his attention.

"X!" she screamed, realizing he was in his "warrior" mode.  He turned just in time to see the enraged Slayer rushing at him.  He fell into a defense stance and blocked her first two hits, and managing to get out a few of his own before she started pummeling him six ways to Sunday.

Buffy was letting loose all her frustrations of the past 48 hours on Xander's defenseless form.  She didn't think he deserved to be called a Warrior, not yet anyway.  His power was strong, stronger than anybody could have guessed, but hers was still stronger, and she had just proven it.  Her slayer-instinct driven blood lust demanded she ended it, and end it with a surefire method.  Normally Buffy would have tried to repress this sudden urge, but she didn't.

After a brutal combo, Slayer jumped up, and slammed her left leg as hard as she physically could into the warrior's chest.  They all heard a sound distinctive of cracking wood, and Buffy realized she had just broken his ribs.  The boy fell back to the mat, trying to catch a breath of air, but unable to do so.  Buffy fell with him, her leg still on his body.  Deciding to take pity and not let him choke to death or drown on his own fluids, Slayer wrapped her inhumanly strong legs wrap around the dark-haired teen's neck.  She began to squeeze until she felt she had a good enough grip, and then she twisted her legs the opposite direction his head had been trying to turn.  The force was just enough, and everybody heard the sickening crunch and Xander's eyes glazed over and all of his struggles ceased in the next second.

Trying to catch her breath, Buffy tenderly untangled herself from Xander's corpse and tried to stand up, forgetting that the gravity was supposed to be heavier than normal.  She managed to get to her knees, and felt satisfied enough with that to stay where she was.  That was when she looked up and saw Willow's face.

A look of pure shock, horror, revulsion, and ever-present throughout all of these, fear.  Fear of Buffy.  Fear of what she had just done.  Buffy immediately realized her mistake.  She had heard Willow's conversation with Goku and had assumed that the redhead had actually listened and realized what it meant.  Buffy had caught on to the same truths after her first sparring match with Goku, and had guessed that Xander had to.

"Willow…?" Buffy whispered out, trying to stand to her feet.  She succeeded after the third try.  Yet when she tried to take a tentative step towards her friend, Willow just backed fearfully away from her, like she was some kind of dangerous animal.

Buffy felt her heart break at the action.  Willow hated her.  Her emotions suddenly raced out of her control and she began to feel weak.  Her legs were about to give out when the group became aware of a bright golden glow behind her.

Buffy heard Xander stand to his feet behind her and heard him mutter loud enough for all to hear, "Geez Buff, you couldn't have gone any softer on me could you?" he asked in a voice that was entirely sarcastic.

"Xander?" Willow's voice trembled as she spoke.  "Your alive?"

"Well yeah Will, we are immortal now y'know," Xander responded.

In the next instant, the blackness that had been threatening the periphery of Buffy's vision suddenly swam up and completely assaulted her, she had no more strength left to fight it.  Her last thought was, _'Willow hates me…'_

As he was standing up Xander noticed that all of his injuries, particularly his broken ribs and the cuts on his lip and cheek were completely healed, as though they had never been there.  He did have a sharp pain in his neck though every time he turned it a certain way.

Xander was actually surprised that Willow hadn't been aware of the purpose of the exercise just now.  They really were supposed to train until they killed each other.  Then they'd just get back up and kill each other again.  He just hoped that Buffy had gotten the workout she wanted from him.

Just to check, he looked up at Buffy after answering Willow, and asked, "Hey Buff, did I give you a good enough workout?"

Buffy just stood there, looking like she'd had the crap beat out of her.  All of a sudden, her legs just seemed to be cut right out from under her.  "BUFFY!!" Xander and Willow cried together.  Xander didn't have time to think, he just reacted, jumping forward and catching Buffy's body as it started to fall to the heavy gravity.

"Buffy!  Buffy!" Xander was shouting, trying to get the blond to wake up.

Goku appeared in the next second, standing over the three huddled teenagers.  He knelt by Buffy's head, which Xander was cradling, and opened her eyelids and checked the rest of her vitals in quick succession.  After he was through he took a sigh of relief, and part amazement.

"She's still alive," he told her friends.  "But obviously she's pretty beat up.  Now we have two options here, one, we take her to the clinic, or two, we kill her now and she's fully revitalized in seconds as opposed to an hour."

Willow and Xander shared a look.  Willow's held a heavy concentration of doubt about everything, while Xander's just offered the redhead a question.  Willow, still very confused, just looked back and forth between Buffy's unconscious and bloodied body and Xander, looking like he had just woken up from a pleasant nap.

"Xander…?" Willow croaked.

"It's true Willow.  When we die, the second that we revive, we're perfectly healed.  I mean, look at me!  I was bleeding all over the place, my ribs were broken, and I think I might have sprained a whole lot of stuff.  Now I feel better than ever.  Well, except feeling heavier than my uncle's car.  And I get the sharp pain when I turn my neck just so." Xander said.

Willow's eyes widened at the last statement as she kept in mind _what_ exactly had killed Xander.  Finally, Willow worked through enough of her disbelief to put her mind on Buffy's problem.  Spend the rest of the day healing in the sterile Clinic where they were treated as so much pieces of meet to poke, prod, and measure.  Or snap her neck so her immortality could heal her instantly.

They all knew what Buffy would choose, but Willow was the one to say it.  "Kill her.  But not painfully!" she begged, looking at Goku.

Goku just shrugged and looked at Xander.  When the teens noticed, Xander started, yelling, "What?"

Goku just shrugged again.  "She killed you X, now it's your turn.  Then I have to take Willow back to the Clinic to fix her broken nose."

Willow had tendrils of fear run down her back at the thought of going back to that meat locker.  "Why don't you just kill me now," she muttered sarcastically.  "It'd hurt less."

Goku shrugged again and then punched the girl in the face so hard that shards of cartilage and bone from her nose were driven into her brain, causing instant death.  Xander just stared in disbelief as Willow collapsed to the gray-tiled floor, her face literally caved in.

"Umm, Goku…" Xander squeaked.

"Yeah X?" the Trainer said cheerfully.

"Just this once, would you mind killing Buffy?  I-I, um I'm not feeling up to it at the moment, and…and I think I'll just let it go this one time, 'kay?" Xander said lightly, still staring at Willow's corpse.

"Okay," Goku said easily, then stood up and kicked Buffy's chest in, till the top of her chest was less than a millimeter from the top of the floor.  (Think crushed cookie paste)

In the next seconds, both Willow and Buffy began glowing until the light was blinding and they stood up in the next seconds under their own power, feeling no pains at all.  "What happened?" Willow muttered.

"You asked me to kill you, so I did.  Instantly so you wouldn't feel anything," he answered.

Buffy was silent, remembering her last conscious thought, _'Willow hates me…'_

Deciding to move on, Buffy, sounding rather tense turned to the Saiyan and said stiffly, "So what's next?  Glad to see Willow's ok and everything, but we've got a lot to do.  So how about Xander take a shot at you and you give me something else to do, huh?"

Goku just stared blankly at her.  "OK," he finally nodded.  "Do what Xander was doing.  Don't stop until I tell you, and don't stop and ask me what next because you're bored.  Willow, stomach crunches.  Xander, we're over here."

The team from the Hellmouth put up no argument, sensing the strangeness of the mood and choosing to just do as told and not whine or complain about it for once.  Buffy did punching katas, unconsciously staying as far away from Willow as possible, while Willow just dropped down and did half-sit-ups and Xander punched and kicked at their Trainer who effortlessly avoided his attempts.  They didn't quit until the end of the day, nine hours after.

            It was actually ten hours after the end of Buffy and Xander's "fight" that the trio managed to hobble back through the MTC to their board and room.  An entire hour spent in the clinic for something the doctors would only ever refer to as a "Checkup" and only in their native language, none of which happened to be English let alone human.

            That wasn't the worst part of it though.  The minimal worseness of it was that 'décor', nothing but thoroughly sterilized steel color machinery, furniture, walls, floor, and even the beds they had to sit on.  It was worse than they thought it would be, mostly because they all felt like they were in some kind of meat grinding, butcher's shop, chop block.  Willow had already been there, so was at least prepared for the worst.  Buffy and Xander weren't.

            The absolute very worst about the clinic however, were the doctors.  They treated them like so much mass of meat to be picked, poked, prodded, scanned, weighed, and measured.  They spoke like the patients weren't even there, even though with the Universal Translators they could all understand perfectly, talking to the computer with the test results and not even caring about the groups' comfort or feelings.

            _Finally_, the doctors, if that was what they could be called, let them go, and Goku set the red portal back to their apartment and told them he would pick them all up at the same time (and in the same way) the next morning, which thankfully was not for another ten or so hours.

            The moment that they were through the portal and in their "apartment" that they still had not fully explored yet, all three of them noticed a remarkable change.

            "What the hell?" Buffy cursed as she suddenly stood straight, feeling lighter than a feather.

            "Yeah, I feel it too Buff," Xander added, feeling the same.

            "Well, it _is_ a little less stuffy in here," Willow quietly observed, still feeling tired and mildly heavy.

            "They must've turned the GEO thingies off," Buffy surmised.  "Cool.  I suddenly don't feel as tired.  Want to get something to eat guys?"

            They both declined, choosing to go and lay out on the comfy couches and recliners.  Xander plopped down on the larger couch and started to pretend like he was sleeping, though both girls could tell that he was faking it.  The over-done snoring sounds were their first clue.  Willow sat down in one of the comfy gray recliners, sighing as the cushions immediately conformed to her body to give maximum support and comfort.

            Buffy ambled on over to the bar where they'd had their breakfast and sat at the stenciled seat with her name.  "Can I get something to eat please?" she asked aloud.

            A computer-like beep of confirmation sounded from either the wall or the bar itself as a holographic display, of green and yellow light, suddenly popped up in front of the blond Slayer.  In yellow/gold 3-D print, was the question 'WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE?'

            Buffy frowned a little.  Then she remembered, the two times that Goku had let them eat all day, he had said something about their personal menus.  So she shrugged and decided to see what she had available before just saying anything that they might not even have.

            "Can I see my personal menu first please?"

            'CODENAME PLEASE…' was displayed.

            Buffy sighed and remembered the trouble she had with her door last night.  "Slayer," she answered shortly.

            'PROCESSING…'  2 seconds later, 'FULL NUTRITIONAL MEAL DISPLAY OPTIONS:'

            Right below that, the entire green-light screen was full of five columns of names of both snacks, meals, and in English the names of every single food item that Buffy had ever thought was good.  Buffy didn't want to count, but she suspected each column to be well over 100 items.

            Gulping that anybody could know this much about her, Buffy skimmed the lists until she came to something that sounded particularly tasty; rotisserie baked chicken, mashed potatoes and crème mushroom gravy, and corn on the cob.  She chose Coke as a drink.  Making her selection, which amazingly enough was just to tap the item on the screen, which then highlighted, and then pushing 'Cook Up' in the bottom right corner of the screen, and ten seconds later, during which the screen disappeared, the counter hummed for one second, and the remaining seconds were given to the materialization of the food from the same green light that had manifested their breakfast that morning, complete with utensils.

            Buffy immediately dived into the meal as Goku had devoured his noodles at lunch, not caring in the slightest for any noises or messes that she made.  She just knew she was hungry and this was food, which would make her not hungry.

            As Xander and Willow sat in the "lounge area", the soft, subtle, yet incredibly mouth-watering scents of Buffy's dinner made it's way over to their nostrils, to the nerves at the top of their noses, and into their brains, which registered as pleasure.  A much desired pleasure.

            Xander's nose started twitching the moment the scent hit him, though his eyes remained closed.  Willow just turned around and stared at Buffy's back, her mouth opening some, the drool pooling higher in her mouth threatening to spill out over the edge.

            "Um, Buffy?" Willow managed to call out after swallowing the large amount of fluids in her mouth.  Buffy had to pause in her shoveling to swallow and turn around, her mouth rimmed with the gravy from the potatoes.  "Yeah Will?" Buffy asked carefully, still thinking that Willow hated her for what had happened hours before in the gym.

            "What….what is that you're doing?" the pale redhead asked with a hunger in her voice.

            "Eating," the slayer answered shortly, as though it were obvious.  Xander was sitting up at that.

            "Um, eat-eating what exactly?" Willow asked, trying to control her voice.

            "Oh!  Chicken and mashed potatoes, with corn on the cob," she answered, pronouncing potatoes as Poe tot Toes.  She then giggled a little.  "I never did like saying it that way.  Potato, potato." She said, comparing the two sounds of the same word.

            "Uh huh," Willow mumbled, getting up and slowly making her way to the bar.  Xander was right behind her.  They both had a gaunt, hungry look in their glazed eyes.

            In the next instant, they both were at their places and gazing intently at the half-finished plate that Buffy had turned back to, though now eating at a more conservative pace.

            "Um, Buff, how-how…" Xander had to stop himself from drooling.  "How you get food?"

            Buffy had the decency to stop, grab the napkin that had appeared with the plate and wiped her mouth before grinning and answering Xander's question.  She was glad that neither of them was angry with her over what had happened to them in the past forty-eight hours or so.

            "Just ask the computer for your menus, but don't forget to include your code name.  Then pick and voila." Buffy explained.

            Both were obviously just as starved as Buffy was, as they immediately followed Buffy's instructions, their words tumbling over one another's.  Buffy glanced at their menus while they had them up, and was mildly surprised to see each in a different format.  Willow's looked to have just as many per column as she had, possibly more, but only _four_ columns.  Xander's was actually much smaller than both of theirs.  His had roughly six to eight columns, from what Buffy could see, but each column was maybe twenty or less per column.

            When the finally picked, both had picked whole pizzas, Willow the "Veggie lovers" and Xander extra cheese.  They began to devour their food almost as fast as Buffy had and were concentrating on nothing else.  Buffy began to eat once more, but at a considerably more civilized rate than she had been before.

            Thirty minutes later, after Buffy having seconds and both other teens finishing all of their pizzas, the plates and other stuff disappeared as the teenagers filled themselves with food and went back to the lounge to just generally relax.

            Buffy, having been tense ever since they came back to the apartment, decided to have that "talk" that they all needed to have.  There was just one thing missing.  Giles.

            "Has anybody seen Giles?" Buffy asked, disrupting the silence that had held the room.

            Both teens shook their head, feeling content after the fulfilling meal and still exhausted from the earlier trials.  Buffy began to feel a creepy tingle of worry at the back of her neck as she stood up.

            "Did Goku, or anybody else, say where he would be going to train?  I'm serious guys, I'm starting to get worried." Buffy said.

            Willow frowned some, but didn't get up.  "Have you tried his room?" she asked naively.

            Buffy quirked her eyebrows, actually considering the logic of the question.  Then she just walked over to the door with 'WATCHER' stenciled in blue next to it.  She pressed the panel beside it, hoping that would open.  Instead she just heard some kind of computer-generated chirp that actually sounded like a doorbell ringing.  Surprised, Buffy did it again.  Same result.

            Just as she was about to press it a third time, the door suddenly opened and there was Giles directly in front of her, with a rather sour look on his face.  As soon as he saw who it was, his expression instantly lightened and he looked rather pleased to see her.

            "Buffy!" he exclaimed.  "I'm surprised to see you here.  What can I do you for?"

            Buffy blinked.  Was this that same Giles from earlier?  She quickly composed herself and answered him.  "Uh, I-uh, I need you out here for-for a minute.  Are you done meditating?"

            "Yes, I finished several hours.  I actually wasn't expecting you all back this early," Giles said as he left his room.

            Buffy wondered about his statement.  They hadn't exactly been away from each other for only a class period.  "Giles, how long do you think you've been here?" Buffy asked as they both sat down in the lounge.

            Giles made an 'I don't know' gesture and said, "Well, that's where things get rather confusing.  I have absolutely no concept of outside time when meditating, but if it helps, I've only been 'awake' as the term goes, for approximately three hours.  I can only imagine that I've been out for about five or six hours."

            The three teenagers stared at him, prompting him to add, "Or possibly longer."

            "Try more like 19 hours Giles!  We've been through the absolute worst training that you can imagine, and probably some stuff that you can't!  And me worrying about how your handling your new magic sword…" Buffy ranted.

            "Blade," Giles corrected.

            Buffy looked annoyed for several moments before continuing.  "Blade," she amended, "Me worrying about how you are doing is not exactly helping my concentration factor.  I…  Giles, _I'm_ the one in charge, _I'm_ responsible for all of us.  The Powers said it themselves, I'm the representative of this group, and that means that I have to take care of all of us."

            "Buffy nobody expects you to…" Giles began.

            "Buffy, we don't expect you to be anything more than you already are…" Willow started.

            "Guys!" Xander shouted, quieting the intellectuals.

            "Buff," Xander said, "I get the pressure you're under.  I even get a lot of what we're doing here.  Above all, I get the _purpose_ of what we're doing here.  To learn how to fight and get strong enough to actually fight.  Unfortunately, I'm afraid that only you and I fully understand what we're going to have to do." He said, pointedly looking at Willow.  She blushed.

            "Willow, out of all us, I understand that you are not a violent person, and you aren't really the fighting type.  But Will…  For crying out loud!  We're immortal!  We don't have to worry about being careful to not die.  I'll be the first to admit that I would _rather_ avoid it, it is quite painful after all.  But we are all going to have to push ourselves pretty damn far.  Shit, dying is probably going to be the easiest thing we can do in all of this."

            They were all silent as Xander spoke.  "Willow, you're going to be involved in magic, while Buffy and me are going to be more physical.  Giles apparently is going to be off on his own, and by the way G-man, your attitude totally sucked today."

            Giles scrunched his face in confusion.  "Excuse me?" he asked, his voice a bit stressed.  "I have no idea what you're talking about…"  He suddenly stopped talking and turned to look back at his room, as though he'd heard someone calling him.

            He stood up, saying, "Excuse me for a moment, would you?"  Then walked back to his room, leaving the door open until he came back out, walking much slower with the open Blade in his hands.  "Giles?" Buffy said in concern.

            The Watcher looked up at his name and quickly rejoined them by the couches.  "I'm sorry for that you all.  But…I…I heard…the Blade, Nightblade, calling me.  I know that sounds strange…"

            "Actually, since the sword is sentient Giles, it's not that surprising.  So what does '_Nightblade_' need you for?" Buffy asked.

            Giles turned all of his attention to the obsidian Blade in his hand, as though listening to it.  After about a minute, he looked back up at Buffy, guilt written on the Englishman's face.  "Buffy I feel I owe you an apology.  Nightblade has…just explained to me…" he paused.

            "Explained what Giles?" Buffy prompted.

            "Apparently, if…if my meditation is ever interrupted, at any point before I have fully completed doing so, then…Nightblade actually takes over."

            "It takes over your body!" Xander screamed.

            Giles hastily shook his head.  "No, that's not what I mean.  I…when I meditate with the Blade, which is a he by the way, I…it's difficult to explain in word.  I…give a part of myself to the Blade, and in return, it gives me a part, the part of it that allows me to…_learn_ how I can best use it.  When I meditate, we, the Blade and I, we fortify that bond.  In short, it _directly_ teaches me how to use and understand its powers.  In return for that, it…in a very, very mild sense, possesses my body.  When you…interrupted me earlier Buffy, it was Nightblade that was in control.  He…he apologizes for usurping your authority, and both he and I pledge ourselves to you.  Though you must understand Buffy…allowances must be made."

            Buffy was listening very carefully as Giles tried to explain his relationship with his new swor…Blade.  When he finished, or at least looked like he had, Buffy spoke.  "Thank you Giles, and…thank you Nightblade," she directed the last comment to the weapon in her mentor's hands.  "I understand, at least I think I do, what it is you have to do, and why, but…"  Buffy stopped and looked Giles directly in the eye, showing her soul to him and the Blade.  "Giles, please…don't ever degrade me like that again.  I'll stand up to a little cheek every now and then, and maybe even a temper tantrum, but don't ever talk to me like you did today.  Ever again."

            All were silent as they felt the emotion in the room.  The black weapon between them all suddenly flashed blue, not lasting even an instant, but its message was still conveyed in that amount of time.  It was sorry, and it swore to never break the oath it had just made.  Giles, with tears pooling around his eyes, just nodded, heartbroken that he could ever do such a thing to his Slayer, ever.  He suddenly felt the urge to go and meditate again.

            Buffy noticed Giles' sudden anxiety and decided to ask about it.  "Giles?  Is something wrong?"

            Giles just shook his head, then said, "Well, actually I'm not too sure.  I suddenly feel an overwhelming urge to go and meditate again."  Buffy nodded.

            "OK, but first," she said, "would…would you mind telling me if I made the right decision?"

            Giles didn't even have to hesitate.  He just smiled at her, "Yes, you did Buffy.  The Powers warned us themselves, there would be challenges coming that we could have never faced unless we came here.  I have every confidence in you Buffy.  Please, never doubt that."

            Buffy grinned, tears suddenly threatening to wet her cheeks.  She stood, as Giles was already standing, and gave him a quick goodnight hug.  "Now go and meditate.  And don't forget, we have to be ready to go before six.  I want to at least try and get up before Goku shows up."  Giles nodded, "Of course Buffy.  Good night."

            "Night Giles!"

            "Night G-man!"

            Once the Watcher was in his room, the door shut, Xander and Willow turned to Buffy and gave her their best intimidating glares.  It just gave her the urge to start laughing.  Yet her present frame of thought gave her all the encouragement that she needed to sober up.

            "All right Buffy," Willow said, resolve face on full blast, "you've been acting weird since the fight with Xander.  Which by the way I understand and don't have any problems with now.  Buffy, we're your friends.  Tell us what the problem is."

            "Yeah Buff," Xander added.

            Buffy sat back down at her seat, and suddenly found her knees very fascinating.  Finally she looked up at her two best friends in the entire world, "Do you think I made the right choice?"

            At their confused looks, she continued, "Coming here.  Accepting this whole destiny and true power thing the Powers shoved in our faces.  Did I do the right thing?"

            Willow smiled, "Buffy, I think you're forgetting something here.  _I _was the deciding vote, remember?  So what do you think?  Besides, some of the books I've already gotten to read…"  Willow's smile actually brightened, "It's almost beyond comprehension.  This place is amazing Buffy.  And I admit, a tad harsh, but hey, that's life."

            "And you know me Buffy, I've been 'gung-ho' since the get go!" Xander lamely added.

            The two girls cracked up at Xander's quip, but they all soon quiet their laughter.  The somber mood returned and Willow began to think that there was more to Buffy's problem than what she had just admitted.

            "Buffy, other than the whole self-doubt issue…is there anything else the matter?" Willow asked.

            Xander looked up, but said nothing as Buffy studied her knees once more.  "No," the blond said uncertainly.  Xander and Willow shared a look.  Xander nodded and stood up.

            "Well ladies, I for one am ready to turn in," he said making a humorous display of stretching and yawning.

            "Xander wait," Buffy called, as he was almost to his door.  He turned back and approached.  "Sit down," she asked.  Frowning, he did.

            Buffy considered trying to find some roundabout way of asking, but she was tired and couldn't think of anything, so she decided on the direct approach.  Looking Willow in the eye, she asked, all her emotions in her voice, "Do you hate me Willow?"

            Willow's eyes widened and her face fell and paled almost dangerously as her brain short-circuited.  Buffy ducked her head, afraid of the redhead's reaction.

            "Buffy!  How-how-how, how can you say that?!" Willow near exploded when her voice caught up with her sudden hyperventilating breath.  "Of course I don't hate you!!  I could never hate you!  Note the use of negative words like don't and never!  Buffy…I love you, and I repeat I could never hate you, not even for an instant."  Willow felt a sudden and completely overwhelming compulsion, she got up and was across the small space separating them in a second, where she hugged Buffy in a tight and shaking embrace.

            Buffy, the tears she'd been holding for the last eleven hours finally falling as she easily accepted Willow and they just held her.  Xander, while appreciating the possibility of a girl/girl moment, knew when to be just a friend and not a guy.

            "Buffy…is this because of the whole fight earlier?  Because I'm pretty sure nobody was permanently hurt from that," Xander said.

            Buffy turned her gaze to Xander, and he had to gulp from the intensity she directed at him.  "Why did you hit Willow anyway?  She wasn't even in the fight!" Buffy's voice sounded like diamond against plaster.

            Xander just shrugged, looking rather beaten himself.  "I guess I've got a confession of my own to make.  Remember last year, the field trip to the Zoo?  The whole hyena thing?"

            "It's not exactly easy to forget Xander," Willow said.

            "Yeah, well…"

            "It's ok Xander, we know it wasn't you in control," Buffy said.

            "Uh, kinda, yeah.  Well, that's kind of a yes and no type deal." Xander said.

            The two girls stopped and stared at the dark-haired youth.  They looked at each other, and Willow slid out of Buffy's embrace.  "What do you mean Xander?" Buffy asked.

            Xander, desperate, and fearing retribution, "I wasn't actually in control, something else was, I still don't know what, but…"  He took a deep breath.  "But.  I remember everything.  Everything.  Willow, I am so sorry for what I told you when I was locked in the cage.  I swear I didn't mean a word of it.  I wasn't in control.  But I did lie that I didn't remember any of it.  I'm sorry."

            Both girls took deep breaths of their own before turning back to one another and then back to Xander.  "I take it there's a reason that brought about this confession _now_?" Buffy asked with a note of ire.

            Xander repressed the urge to run away screaming and settled on gulping.  "Uh, yeah.  Re-remember the, that is, when I had the whole super senses and was almost as strong as you were Buff?" he asked.  They both nodded.  "Well, Istillhavethem." He said in a rush.

            Buffy and Willow blinked and stood up to face their friend.  "Meaning…what?" Buffy asked.

            Xander shrugged.  "Meaning, I can smell vampires, and you, and everything else that I could while possessed, and my hearing is definitely better.  And when we've been helping you on patrol Buffy?  I-I kinda noticed that the strength is still there too.  I don't have any hankerings for meat or, uh…mating, but the…the powers are still there."

            "What about the others?  The bullies?" Willow asked.  Xander could only shrug.

            Buffy however, saw how the pattern fit with everything.  "Huh," she grunted.  "So that's the power I sensed inside you.  The hyena spirit?  And when you were fighting me, when you were going all out, that's when you started to rely totally on what was left of the hyena?  That was why you attacked Willow while I was distracted?"

            Xander, his throat dry, nodded.

            "Wow," Willow breathed, sitting back down.  "But why did you think I hated you Buffy?"

            Buffy almost cringed.  "When…after I had knocked Xander out…I saw the look on your face.  I…I thought you hated me."

            Willow could almost laugh, but her heavy heart prevented it.  "No Buffy, I didn't hate you.  I was scared of you.  Xander, my best friend since kindergarten, punched me with very little reason.  By the way Xander," she paused as Buffy punched him in the nose, drawing blood, but not breaking it, "I forgive you.  Thanks Buffy."  The blond only nodded, not meeting her friend's gaze.

            "If he did that to me, and Goku was all rootin' to see us fight each other, when you finished Xander, I was afraid that you would turn against me too.  It was all kind of instinctual anyway.  I'm sorry I hurt you Buffy."

            Buffy sat back down and put her arm across Willow's shoulders.  "It's OK Willow.  But unless I give you warning or Goku tells me to, after a very long fight I might add, I will never fight you.  I just couldn't do that Willow." Buffy explained.  "Doesn't mean we won't ever spar, just means that I won't ever attack you without prior warning."

            Willow chuckled and nodded.

            "So now what?" Xander asked, sounding as beat as he looked.

            Buffy shrugged, her arm still around Willow.  "I don't know.  We could go to bed, get however many hours extra sleep we'll be needing.  Or.  We could stay up talking until we're falling asleep where we sit."

            "We got enough sleep, I say we talk." Willow said.

            Xander gave a lopsided grin and got more comfortable in his recliner opposite the couch.  "Sure, why not?  So what spells did you learn today Wills?"

            Buffy felt Willow shrug herself as they both got more comfortable on the couch opposite Xander.  "A lot of things.  Some of it, well, I can't really tell you.  Other stuff you have to read to even believe possible, and a whole lot of it is in languages that have more letters than English has words.  But there was this one thing that I found very familiar."

            "What is it?" Buffy asked.

            "It's called a Tri-power shield.  Basically it uses the spiritual and body energy, also called the Aura energy, of three different people and focuses it into a dome-like shield that protects against all physical, and even some magical harm."

            Buffy frowned.  "That kinda sounds like…"

            "The shield spell that I cast yesterday in the Main Gym when Goku was giving his demonstration!" Willow finished for her.  "I began to wonder how I could have possibly known that spell when I only learned _of_ it today.  Then I found this other spell that is basically a Temporal-phase mental amplification spell."  At her friends' confused looks, she explained further.  "Actually, it's called the 'Knowledge of Time' spell.  It more or less just allows somebody, with help of course, to send knowledge, whether experience or just like future learned stuff back in time to a person that you want to influence.  Usually just yourself.  And before you start thinking of like sending lottery numbers or sports scores to yourself, it only works for a brief period of time, and depending on how strong the caster, or casters as the case may be, you could only send it about a day back in time.  Like when Xander went to get Angel to help you Buffy that was like a moment of inspiration.  For me to have cast that spell…well…"

            "Well what Will?" Xander asked.

            "Well, I would kinda need to do this Time spell in like…maybe a few minutes in order to send that…moment of inspiration that occurred yesterday." Willow looked kinda sheepish.

            "So ya wanna do it?  I mean, we can do it, right?" Buffy asked.

            "Oh yeah, we can do it.  It doesn't require and extra supplies or a ritual or nothing.  Not even the shield spell.  That only requires the energy that I used from you guys already.  As for this knowledge thing, it's more a meditation exercise than anything else.  But…I'd kinda need both of yours help."

"I'd do the focusing and the spell and everything, but I kinda need to you help me and give me enough power to make sure it happens.  But if you don't want to…" she trailed off.

"Well…" Buffy said.  "Didn't we already do it?  I mean, you already cast that shield spell, we all saw you do it.  And if we don't do this knowledge through time spell, wouldn't that kinda be like changing the past.  So we already did cast it, but in order for the shield thing to happen, we have to cast it again?"

"I know, it's kinda a paradox, but we don't have to.  I mean, if we don't then all that means is we'll get dusty when Goku does the demonstration…"

"Let's do it!" Buffy and Xander shouted at the same time as they stood up.

"Okay," Willow meekly added and stood up and led them to one of the clear areas in the room.  She had them sit in a more or less triangle and take each others hands.

"Close your eyes and try to stay relaxed.  If anything happens, believe me, you'll know it."

Within thirty seconds, Buffy suddenly knew something had happened.  She was suddenly seeing the same thing she had seen yesterday at the demonstration.  The two energy blasts being shot at Goku hanging mid-air.  Only thing was, she knew it was from Willow's perspective.

She suddenly felt Willow, the Willow she was sitting in a circle with in their apartment, doing something, sending her knowledge of the Triangular shield to her past self.  She didn't know how or why, but she was fully aware of Xander and Willow with her, but didn't know what to think of it.  Then she was too overwhelmed by seeing the collision of the beams on Goku, again, and the onrushing cloud of dust.

Almost out of nowhere she heard her own voice say, 'This is not the time for spell casting Willow' to which she herself immediately answered in her own head, _'Yes it is_' and thought nothing more of it.  And in the next few moments, she felt something that she had never even felt before.  The spell taking shape, and drawing power from the past versions of herself, Xander, Giles, and a little bit from Willow.

After the shield was dispelled, Buffy thought they would just immediately zap back to the present, but instead she found herself, and her friends with a little problem.

_'What!  Who are you?  What are you doing in my head?'_ Past-Willow was thinking at them.

_'Uh oh,'_ Xander thought.

_'Xander?!'_ Past-Willow thought with alarm.

_'Forget,'_ Willow thought to her former-self.  And that was that.  Past-Willow forgot all about them and the spell she had just cast and woke up to find her friends catatonic with shock.  After that, the astral time-travelers returned to their bodies in the present.

"Well that was an experience," Xander commented when they all opened their eyes.

"I'll say," Buffy added.

"Well, look at the bright side.  At least we didn't get dusty!" Willow chirped.

"Why are you so suddenly chirpy?" Buffy noted with annoyance.

"I cast a spell!  And it worked!  Usually my first attempts are a lot less than nothing.  And now, in three days, I get no less than five whole and new spells to work on the first try," Willow exclaimed.  "Buffy, that's like you being able to punch out Goku with one hit.  I'm just so happy it worked.  And there haven't been any consequences yet."

"Consequences?" Xander and Buffy echoed.

"Uh, I'll tell you in the morning.  I think I just found consequence number one.  Man, am I tired," Willow yawned.

"Yeah me too," Buffy quietly said.

Xander just yawned and stood up with half-lidded eyes.

"OK, time to go to bed, nightie-night," Willow shuffled to her feet and turned to her own bedroom door.  The other two followed her example, Xander reaching his and disappearing first.  Just before she could reach hers though, Buffy turned around as Willow called her name.

"Buffy?" she asked, her vocals tired and worried at the same time.  "Do-do, do you forgive me?  For being scared of you?  I-I'm sorry Buffy I never…"

"There's nothing to forgive Willow.  Have a good nights sleep," Buffy said quietly, looking intently at the young witch.

"Open," the door opened.  She stepped inside, but turned back to see Willow staring after her.  Their eyes met.  "Close."  The door closed.

(Author's Note:  This Chapter, until now, has been incomplete.  Only at the desperate requests to update forced me to place what I have here now.  The next _Chapter_, **"The First Week"** will be _AS_ long if not longer than this Chapter has been/is.  This is a WIP, Work In Progress.  I have every full intention and desire to finish this storyline, however, I am writing as the days go by, and as most often is the case, I post new chapters to my stories as soon as I finish and edit them.  No working on new chapters until then.  Sorry. L )

Sincerely,  Joshua  "The Evil Guy" J


	4. The First Week

**Champions Of The Universe:******

**_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_**

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_Disclaimer:_           In no way do I own any of these characters, or their histories, except ofcourse for the Powers, the Compound, and the character of Goku, though not his history or name.  All characters and other links to the television show _"Buffy the Vampire Slayer"_ belong to Joss Whedon, and the respective production companies.  Anything related to Dragon Ball Z belong to their respective creators.  This is entirely a work of fiction, and in no way do I promote or believe any of the things within here written, nor do I stand to make any sort of profit.

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**The First Week:**

_Second Day:_

            For the second day, Goku found himself getting up at least an hour early, eating his breakfast almost unhealthily fast, and in general getting ready a lot sooner than the rest of the Compound did.  And then he found himself stepping through his MTC into his new recruits apartment.  He just stood there for the first few minutes, waiting for the last ten minutes before wake-up call.  The moment that it was ten till, he attached the vocal enhancer to his throat and shouted as loud as he could, "Rise and shine!!  Rise and shine!!!"  Ofcourse with the vocal enhancer it sounded more like a fifty foot giant was shouting it instead of the six foot Saiyan.

            After his third bellow, the reaction he had gotten yesterday morning repeated itself.  At least to the point of all the doors opening.  The difference came in the fact that both Buffy _and _Xander were holding their make sevens in their hands and had them pitched to be thrown at him if he hollered another decibel.

            Yet what kept him from shouting out once more, was Giles holding Nightblade, the tip sparking with blue energy.  Instead, he just covered his mouth with his fist, removed the vocal enhancer and cleared his throat.  Then he smiled condescendingly, as he had been ever since they had met him, and said in as snobbish a voice that he could produce, which just made him sound like a really tough drill instructor, "Not too bad for your second day.  You should remember the drill, so get to it!"

            The four relaxed, and Buffy and Xander tossed their katanas back into their rooms and then shuffled out and over to the meal bar.  Giles just re-sheathed Nightblade and joined them at the bar.  The teens looked a bit rumpled from their sleep, but Giles himself looked remarkable well kempt.

            Goku also noticed that each of them had taken to what most in the Compound had in sleeping attire.  They had slept in their underwear.  Or rather, Buffy and Willow wore their black leotards, Xander the boxers and tank top, and Giles had either put them on before opening his door or slept in his pants.  Though they are quite comfortable, Goku thought to himself.

            Buffy was still tired.  In fact she was so tired that it felt like she had gotten less than ten minutes of sleep.  Nevertheless, she found she still had the strength to threaten Goku with her sword, and then walk over to the bar to eat.  This morning, it was much simpler, just eggs, biscuits in gravy, and orange juice.  For everybody.

            "Wow, who knew that this was everybody's favorite breakfast!" Xander commented dully as he sat down and started shoveling in the nutrition.

            "It's not," Willow answered numbly as she too shoveled in the grub.

            They ate in silence for some time after that, and after they finished the first helping, Buffy asked for a second round, while Xander asked for some cereal.  Giles went back to his room with Nightblade, and Willow, complaining that she was stuffed, went over to sit on the couch for a few minutes.  Which actually turned into curling up on the self-conforming cushions and trying to go back to sleep.

            Ten minutes after waking up, Buffy and Xander had finished their seconds and were standing up just as the lights started flashing and the "wake-up whine" started sounding.  "Shut up!" Buffy yelled at the ceiling.  In response, the lights started strobing and the whine got twice as loud.  Buffy yelled again, louder, "SHUT UP!!!"

            Suddenly the whine got to be bone shaking and teeth shattering and the lights began to give everybody a headache.  Goku was showing just as much pain as the rest of the mortals but offered no support or explanation.  Finally Willow shouted at Buffy, "BUFFY!  I don't think that IS WORKING!!"  Willow was just as surprised as anyone when the wake-up alarm suddenly cut out, leaving her to shout the end of her sentence at a higher volume.

            "What just happened?" Buffy asked Goku.

            The taller Saiyan/human just shrugged and was wincing as he cleared his ears.  "Uh, my guess is that they installed the 'wake-up or else' clause in your system.  What that means is that your alarm cuts out when its convinced that you're awake, but some species can shout in their sleep, so words that indicate the noise to stop, such as 'shut up' or 'quiet' or so on, they won't turn off the system.  Plus your voices have to reach a certain volume in order to be effective."

            Buffy just rolled her eyes and went into her room.  "Perfect.  If anybody needs me I'm going to be getting off in the shower.  Don't bother me."

            Willow mimicked her friend's sentiments, but chose not to say anything and went into her own room.  Xander, quiet until now, looked up at Goku and seemed about to ask a question, but he hesitated and then just turned and started for his own room.  Goku stopped him however, "What is it Xander?"

            Xander paused, slowly turned around, and looked the 1/8th Saiyan in the eye.  "What do you think Goku?  I want to know when we're going to see the results of this training of yours.  So far…all its done is kill us and make us snap at each other's throats.  We were a pretty good team before we came here Goku.  Now…now we're barely holding together."  Xander stopped talking and went into his room to get a shower.  Leaving Goku with a confused look on his face.

            In her room, Willow was feeling many things.  She was a feeler of many different emotions.  Confusion, anger, frustration, exhaustion, anxiousness, fear, and more confusion.  She just shook it all off for a moment and entered her bathroom, making sure the door was closed behind her.

            Then, avoiding the mirror, Willow carefully stripped out of her single-piece leotard/underwear and set the "Sonic shower" as Goku had shown her yesterday morning.  Sighing in hopes that the shower would relieve most of her stress, Willow stepped into the alcove and commanded, "Shower On!"

            Immediately, the force field sparked into place at the entrance to the shower and the "lights," which Willow had realized were actually sonic resonators, came on.  As yesterday, Willow's entire frame was bombarded with more sensation than she could stand at once.  As yesterday, she came within seconds of the shower's activation.

            She could barely hear her own screams of ecstasy above the whine of the shower, but she had little desire to give the off command as she was hastily approaching her second orgasm.  After her second orgasm, which somehow merged with her third and fourth orgasms, the resonators began to shift into the green spectrum, and now Willow really was going crazy.

            All thought and stress and just about everything left Willow, except the sensation and the ecstasy.  She was nothing except one big cumming nerve, as her breasts were stimulated in ways that she never before imagined.  She fell to her knees, her legs parting, as yesterday, and rediscovered the pure pleasure coming (in more ways than one) from the area between her legs when she opened them to the light.

            Slowly, Willow began to return to reality as the green gave way back to the blue.  She knew from experience that if she didn't stop it then, then the cycle would just start over again.  Despite the temptation, Willow shakily got to her feet and commanded, when she could hear her own voice again, "Shower Off!"

            The lights and force field turned off immediately and Willow stepped out of the alcove, naked, dry, and completely clean.  _'I'm going to have to get used to this,'_ Willow thought to herself as she picked up her leotard, referring to the non-need of drying off after stepping out of the shower.

            She was also surprised when she stepped into her clothes that they felt the same cool fresh clean that they had yesterday when she had first put them on.  She wondered briefly, yet again, what had happened to the clothes they had been wearing when they had arrived here, but figured that they'd either be given replacements, or be able to keep these for when they went back home.

            Zipping up her jumpsuit, Willow sat down on her large bed and quickly slipped her boots on, minus socks (another thing to get used to), but the boots were so comfortable that she felt she didn't really need socks.

            Ready, as she ever could be, Willow stepped out of her room and into the living room, surprised to see Goku standing there with a confused look on his face.  "Is something wrong Goku?" she asked friendly.

            The taller Saiyan started at Willow's question, apparently unaware of her entrance into the room.  "Huh?  Willow?  Oh.  No, nothings wrong.  Nothing directly anyway.  Don't worry about it, I can handle it," Goku said when she looked about to say something more.

            "Well, okay," Willow muttered and then went to the couch to wait for the others.

            After a minute of tense silence, Willow felt the need to talk and asked Goku, "So, uh, Goku?  What's on the agenda for today?  Oh, and did Amana…uh, I mean the Arch Mage get in touch with you about yesterday?"

            Goku looked up at Willow, and she was afraid that she'd have to repeat her questions, but Goku answered them simply enough.  "Amana?  Yeah, she got in touch with me.  You'll be going to her at the same time.  And don't worry, she told me that they would forgo the maze this time," Goku said with a grin.

            "As for what we'll be doing today, more of what happened yesterday.  Except that I expect Giles to be staying here most of today.  You've passed the reading material course, right?" Goku asked suddenly.

            Surprised, Willow nodded and said, "Um, yeah, why?  I mean, Amana…the Arch Mage said that I had, and that's why I joined you guys yesterday.  Why do you ask?"

            "Did you come across any references to 'The Blades of Power'?" Goku asked.

            Willow creased her brow in concentration as she searched her photographic memory for the information.  Then her face lit up.  "Yeah!  Yeah, I did!  But it was only a singular reference in a book on various magical power artifacts known throughout the omniverse.  I think it went, "The Blades of Power, while origins are cloaked in secret, are among the most valued and powerful weapons available in the battle of Good and Evil.  Each Blade is rumored to have its own specific name, abilities, and personality, yet all of them are highly revered as extremely powerful magical tools.  At last documented count, there are 30 of these Blades in existence, for they have no doubles across the Omniverse, and are truly unique."  At least I think that's what is said."

            Goku was just staring at Willow, waiting for something apparently.  Then it clicked.  Willow's eyes went wide and her eyebrows near disappeared beneath her scalp.  "You…you mean-you mean, you-you-you-you-you, you mean that…GILES!  That Giles' sword is one of the Blades of Power!!?" Willow screeched.

            Instantly, Buffy, who just putting on her jacket, was out of her room and looking around.  Her eyes locked onto Willow, who was not in any obvious danger, so she asked in a breathless voice, "Willow?  What's wrong?  What happened?"

            Willow looked at Buffy, and Buffy got really, really nervous at the look the redhead had on her face.  "Its almost nothing, Buffy.  I…I just learned something really…(erhrm) interesting about Giles' Blade." Willow coughed.

            "Oh, you mean that it's alive.  We learned that last night Will," Buffy waved off her friends panic.  Before Willow could further explain, Buffy walked back into her room and grabbed her own sword and then stepped back outside and closed the door behind her.

            "So, Goku, what's next?" Buffy asked with humor as she wrapped her neck-length blonde hair back into a ponytail with a wire she had found on her dresser this morning.

            Instead of answering, Goku asked what was on Willow's mind, "Buffy?  Where did you get that?"

            "Get what?" Buffy asked back, finished with her hair and now standing behind Willow on the couch.

            "That wire you just used to pull your hair back," Goku pointed out.

            "Oh," Buffy shrugged.  "I don't know.  I just found it on my dresser this morning.  Part of my problem yesterday, I realized was that my hair kept flying in my face, so when I saw it, I figured problem solved."

            "Oh," Goku muttered.

            At the silence, Buffy and Willow looked at Goku again as Buffy said, "So Goku?  What's next?"  Goku just grinned and shrugged.  "We wait for the others to come out here," he told her simply.

            "Oh," Buffy repeated.

            Dropping the matter for the moment, Buffy jumped over the couch and landed beside her best friend, whom she was feeling much better around after the assurances from last night and a much needed relaxation the Sonic shower provided.

            "So Will," she asked her bestest friend, "ya gonna explain those "consequences" you mentioned last night after the spell?"

            "Huh?  Oh!  Yeah, I mean I guess I should," Willow babbled.

            "Spell?" Goku interrupted.

            Buffy nodded and answered, "We cast a spell last night.  Figured Will could use the practice."

            Willow, blushing, nodded her head in agreement with Buffy.  "Uh, remember that shield spell that I cast the other day?  Well I read about it just yesterday in the books the Arch Mage told me to read, and I also read about how to transfer knowledge from the future for instances of inspiration, and that's how I knew how to do the shield spell that day, and I know you were angry, but I figured that…"

            Willow stopped talking when she saw the look on Goku's face.  It wasn't one of pride, or anger, or even disappointment.  It was more…intense than that.  Like Goku was going over the numerous ways he could kill her most painfully right at that moment.

            "Is something wrong Goku?" Buffy asked, who did not like one tiny little bit the way he was looking at the girl next to her.

            "What.  Exactly.  Did.  You do?" Goku asked very slowly.

            Buffy put her hand on Willow's thigh to keep her from answering, and answered for her.  "We cast two spells.  The first so that Willow could get in touch with her past self during the demonstration in the gym the other day, and the second was the spell that Willow cast then, which you exploded over, though I still don't get why.  So we made sure our clothes didn't get dusty, so what?  Didn't really matter since those clothes are probably scrap right now anyway."

            Willow was glad that Buffy was defending her, though she didn't see where she had done anything wrong, but what she found her mind thinking on was not Buffy's words of defense, rather the hand she had on her thigh.  The moment that Buffy touched her with such a simple gesture, she felt an almost electric contact there where Buffy's warmth met her own.  It was very distracting, and very disturbing at the same time.

            "Willow," Goku pulled her out of her private musings.  "How much of a talk did you and "Amana" have yesterday?"

            Willow was confused at the question, and Buffy's hand still on her thigh certainly didn't help.  "Uh, well," Willow began, "We…we talked about magic.  She explained what magic is exactly and why it is the way that it is and a whole bunch of other stuff.  Why?"

            "I don't suppose any of this…"other stuff" included anything about rules did it?" Goku asked, his face and posture deadly serious.

            Willow froze.  Her mind went over every detail of her time with the Arch Mage.  The redhead timidly shook her head.  "No, nothing about rules.  Except what was defined in the books…"

            Goku stood to his feet rather suddenly, startling both girls.  When he began to pace back and forth around the room rather aggressively, it was obvious to the two teenagers that their Trainer was upset, but they had little clue as to about what.

            After another minute of nothing but Goku pacing, trying to calm down, Xander came out, looking much refreshed, but possibly upset about something himself.  When he saw Goku though, he got concerned.  "What's going on?" he whispered to the girls as he sat on the back of the couch.

            Buffy just shrugged, her face saying the rest.  Willow shrugged as well, but backed it up with, "We're not sure.  We told Goku about the spells we did last night and he looked ready to kill me, as in _really_ kill me, and then he started pacing after he asked me about rules."

            Xander scowled in concern.  "You don't think that by casting spells outside of training that we…broke some kind of…rule?" he asked hesitantly.  Buffy and Willow froze, inside and out.  They hadn't even considered that!

            "Uh oh.  Will, quick, what are all the consequences," Buffy hastily whispered.

            "Well it's just a general karma thing in Wicca.  Kind of a 'do unto others as you would do unto yourself' but a bit _more._  It goes, "Ever mind the Rule of Three, three times what thou givest returns to thee.  This lesson well, thou must learn thee only gets what thou dost earn!"  Basically translated it means that whatever you do with your spells, comes back to you threefold.  If you use the power wisely and to help others, good things will happen.  If not…" Willow left the statement hanging.  Buffy and Xander nodded in understanding.

            "There are more consequences to what you did other than karma Willow!" Goku snapped, continuing his dizzying pace.

            "Hey, ya wanna explain _exactly_ what we did wrong here?  And stop pacing for crying out loud, you're making me dizzy!" Buffy snapped back at him.

            Goku stopped and turned on the three teens.  Buffy suddenly wished that he _hadn't_ stopped pacing.  "There are rules Buffy!  Rules are kinda vital in more regards than you _teenagers_ would probably have the capacity to understand.  There is to be NO, and I repeat **_NO_** unauthorized magic to be performed or used _outside_ of the Mage Tower.  What had me so upset the other day was that Willow used a spell, which in itself she should not have done, that she should not have known or been able to do.  I thought that just maybe…they might blame me if somebody actually cited the rulebook on you.  In the end, I was lucky.  They just thought she was gifted.  Now, you're telling me that the fluke that saved me and you guys from being in the largest trouble one can be without having to fight for your life, was a couple of spells that she learned yesterday?"

            "Well, when you say it like that…" Buffy trailed off.

            There was a kind of tense and extremely uncomfortable silence after that.  Finally Goku seemed to just say "Whatever" and he stood up in a huff and grabbed a package near where he'd sat.  He opened it and then tossed it down in front of the two girls.  They were so surprised, and not to mention definitely feeling the shame and regret, that the two girls and boy just sat there and stared in wonderment at the Saiyan's movements.

            After he tossed down the package, one of the contents spilled out onto the floor.  Buffy was surprised to see a device identical to Goku's advanced palm pilot, or Global, in the closed format.  Slowly picking up the package, she saw three more of the devices in there.  She looked up just in time to see Goku step through the MTC.

            "Goku!  Wait!" she called after him.  It was of little use however as he was already gone.

            "Buffy, what is it?" Willow asked, standing up next to her friend to look in the package as well, Xander on the other side of the Slayer.  They were just as surprised and confused as Buffy was.  Willow pulled out one of the devices, while Buffy picked up the one on the floor.

            Willow examined the device and was surprised by the simplicity of it.  It was about 8 cm long, shaped like a flattened oval, and while closed at the widest point only two and a half cm wide.  One side had a black grip, while the other was the same sterile gray the Compound seemed to favor.  At the top of it was what looked like a micro-camera with red, yellow, green and a blue lights beneath it.  On the bottom, on the backside Willow felt a switch that she imagined must be what activates the device.

            Willow held it like she had seen Goku hold it all yesterday, and came to the disappointing realization that her hand couldn't flip the switch positioned like that.  So she just brought her other hand up and flipped the switch.  But she never expected it to sting her!

            "Oww!" Willow yelled as she brought her pointer finger up to her mouth to suck the pain away.  When she looked at her finger, she was surprised to find a small pinprick, but no blood or any other sign of the wound.

            "Will?  What happened?" Buffy asked with concern.

            "Uh, I don't know.  It bit me!" Willow whined.

            "Well, what'd you do?" Buffy asked, frowning with further concern.

            Willow shrugged.  "I just flipped the switch on the bottom of it.  I figured that would turn it on.  I didn't know that it would bite me!" she answered.

            Frowning, Buffy gave Xander the package and held her own Global the way Willow had it and reached up with her second hand until she found the switch in question.  She jerked her hand back in surprise when the expected bite came, but she didn't cry out.  She did notice however that the lights just beneath the mini-cam, in particular the red one, came on after she did.  "Hunh," she grunted in confusion as she put her finger back to the switch, only no further bites came.

            "Well, it might be just a DNA thing Will, you know so that it'll recognize only authorized users, right?" Buffy hypothesized.

            Willow had to nod at that logic.  "You're probably right Buffy.  But wouldn't that mean that these things, Globals are _ours_ now?"  Wiccan asked.

            Before Buffy could speak, the device in Willow's hand began to chirp, exactly as Goku's did, in answer.  Willow nearly dropped it from surprise, but she kept it in her hand as she looked into Buffy's equally shocked eyes.

            "Well?" Buffy prompted.  "Answer it!"

            Willow gulped.  She didn't even know how to turn the damn thing on and she was supposed to answer her first call on it?  She tried the switch at the bottom again, but that didn't do a thing other than freeze up.  Sighing, she squeezed the grip tighter and shook it in anger.  "How do I turn you on?!" she screamed in frustration.  She barely noticed that her increased grip pressed some switch inside the grip at the top of it where her thumb rested.

            In response to the button Willow pressed beneath the black grip, the chirping device suddenly beeped and slid open to the side, so that the gray side was another seven centimeters away from the grip side, and an illuminated panel with the image of what looked like an orange fishman with _extremely_ large bulbous eyes, connecting the two edges of the Global.

            "Um…hello?" Willow spoke uncertainly to the image.

            _"Witch, you are to report to the Mage Tower immediately for a meeting with your Trainers.  The MTC has been set, all it requires is your authorization.  You are to go as soon as possible."_ The orange fishman said in a rather bubbly language that Willow understood despite its alien origins.

            "Um…OK.  Thank-thank you for telling me," Willow answered as politely as she could.

            Just as she was about to ask it how to turn off the Global in her hand, the fishman spoke up once more.  _"Look Rookie, I know you're new and all,"_ he (if it even was a he she thought) began, _"But you do not keep people like the Arch Mages waiting around, if you know what I mean.  So if they ask you to jump, you ask how high?  If they tell you to kill your best friend and ****** with your worst enemy, you do it.  Got me?"_

            Willow just nodded, her eyes easily showing how overwhelmed she was.  "Yeah, got it.  Except for the, uh, the whatever word it is you used to describe sex, but that's not important is it?  Um, please tell Aman…the Arch Mage that I will be there immediately.  Um…out?"

            The orange operator just gave her his species equivalent of rolling eyes, which was actually to just flap his fins in an agitated manor, according to her implant.  His image disappeared, only to be replaced by the clear glass or plastic or whatever the screen was.  She then remembered that when Goku was done with his Global, all he did was close it.  So she did.  She was somewhat surprised to feel the switch on the bottom to click when it had.

            Willow then remembered that Buffy was in the room when the blonde touched her shoulder.  She jumped slightly, but then quickly relaxed.  "Um, look Buffy, I, uh, I gotta go.  I'm sorry.  I'll explain later…if I can," Willow whispered the last part as she hurriedly walked to the MTC and pressed her hand to the black plate.  "Witch," she authorized when the circle turned red.  It turned a brighter shade, and Willow didn't even bother a glance behind her at her friends.

            Two seconds after Willow was gone, Giles stepped out of his room, ready for the day as it was.  Xander took out his own Global, as well as the only remaining one and tossed it to Giles, while Buffy just stared in dreaded confusion at the red spot on the wall.

            "What's this?" the Watcher asked, decked out in his full outfit, complemented by his Blade sheathed over his shoulder.

            Buffy, distracted from her dark thoughts, turned to her mentor and explained what they had found out about the Globals so far.  After that, Giles nodded his understanding and both he and Xander got their "bites", which Giles also surmised was for identifying the DNA of the primary user.  He also discovered and told them about the button hidden in the grip that activated the device.

            A couple minutes after that, Buffy became more and more agitated, though no amount of begging or concerned questions would get her to disclose why.  Finally, Buffy stood up and grabbed her Global and pressed the button.  It gave the customary beep upon being opened and Buffy ordered at the crystal clear screen, "Get me Goku.  And do not tell me you need authorization, you already have it!"

            Two seconds later, Goku's image was displayed.  He looked kind of angry to the men's eyes, but Buffy was too blinded by her own anger to notice it.  "Goku, what happened to Willow?" Slayer snapped out.

            Goku didn't answer for several moments.  Finally, "She's being questioned about her activities since yesterday.  Other than that, I know nothing.  All I did was tell the Mage Council, the people in charge of the Mage tower and basically all magic-users in the Compound, what you told me and they said that I should stay out of it, and the there was very little chance that Witch would be participating in the group training today.  Is that what you wanted to know, _Slayer_?"

            Buffy barely stopped herself from growling at the human/Saiyan crossbreed.  "She better be ok, _Saiyaman_, or else…"

            "Or else what?" he challenged right back.  Buffy didn't have a come back.

            Finally she just glared hard at him and asked, "Well?"

            Goku glared back, but she could see that his demeanor towards them had changed.  "Meet me in the gym.  You know where."  And with that, his image disappeared from the screen.  Buffy snapped her Global shut and turned to her remaining team members.

            "Well?" she asked their view on the recent events.

            Before either male could answer, Giles suddenly turned and looked sharply at his sword.  He looked like he was about to start arguing with his shoulder, but instead he just deflated and looked at Buffy with an apologetic gaze.  She smiled briefly and nodded.  "I understand Giles.  You go meditate.  Xander and I will go.  If you need to go to your room, or the gym, or wherever, just tell me before you go somewhere else, okay?"

            Giles nodded.  "Of course Buffy," he said and turned to go back to his room.

            As the two warriors walked hastily to the MTC, Xander turned to Buffy and asked something that had begun to bug him.  "I hope he meant the private gym.  You know, our private gym that he got for training.  Not the Main gym.  You don't think he meant the Main Gym, do you?"

            Buffy shook her head.  "I'm sure that he meant the training gym," she assured him.  "Where was that again?"

            In the Mage Tower, Willow found herself entering Amana's office/work shop.  And she was not alone.  There were no less than fourteen other people, or other, in the room.  One was Amana herself.  About ten of the creatures in the room however were anything _but_ human.  The majority of them looked kinda like the robotic nurses that had "escorted" Willow and the others into the operating room where they had gotten their implants…well, implanted.  Except that these things were way shorter, and they had an additional two legs along with the other four appendages.  They were also a rusty brown color and instead of tube arms with tentacles at the ends for hands, they had multi-jointed robotic arms and claws for hands.  The heads however, remained the same.

            Willow was confused and concerned at the same time, a state of being that she found herself in quite a lot recently.  She turned to Amana to ask her what was going on, but was stopped, or rather was stunned into silence by the creature standing behind Amana.

            He, she was quite positive that it was a he, was at the very least nine feet tall, and a minotaur.  Yes, no doubt about it, a minotaur.  He was wearing a beautiful red and gold armor breastplate and thigh and shin guards.  The armor seemed to make him even more regal than his appearance already did for him.  His skin, (or maybe fur?), was solid black, his eyes a golden bronze color, and his horns curved forward perfectly ivory white.  Willow couldn't see any tail from the way he was standing, but she couldn't help wondering if he indeed had one.

            The Arch Mage clearing her throat drew Willow from her stunned silence at the minotaur's appearance.  "Willow?" she asked.  Willow immediately stood at attention and looked straight at Amana.  "Yes Arch Mage?" Willow responded respectfully, keeping in mind the etiquette lessons Amana had given her yesterday.

            Amana nodded her head briefly at the proper use, but Willow knew from the look in her teacher's eye as well as everyone else's stances that something more was going on.  She just hoped she wasn't in any, or if she was then not too much, trouble.

            "I would like you to meet someone very important," Amana gestured to the rest of the room.  Willow quickly scanned the remaining faces, and was surprised to find two other humans besides Amana and herself in the room, yet they appeared to be little more than servants, as they stood almost reverently behind Amana and the minotaur with their heads bowed.

            "This," Amana stepped back and gestured at the minotaur, "is the Arch Mage Level 3, and master of seven of the fourteen Forbidden Arts, Lord _Archer_."

            The massive beast bowed graciously to the red witch and Willow couldn't help feeling that she had just been paid a great deal of respect and honor.  Smiling gratefully, Willow tried to mimic Archer's bow, but she felt she must have messed it up in some way, because when she straightened, both Amana and Archer were barely holding in restrained laughter.

            Grimacing at the sense that she was secretly being made fun of, Willow decided to take another page from Buffy's book and just get straight to the point of it.  "You asked for me Arch Mage Amana?" Willow felt the need for adding further identification what with _two_ Arch Mages in the room.

            Amana nodded.  "Yes.  Goku tells me that you…cast a spell in your room last night?  Which resulted in the "fluke" of you casting an advanced shield spell during the demonstration the other day?"

            Willow nodded, confirming all that the Arch Mage had just said.  "The 'Knowledge of Time' and 'Tri-power Shield' spells."

            "Are you telling us that you cast two high level mage spells last night," Archer spoke, his voice was like speaking thunder "just after reading them once in the books you read yesterday?"

            Willow nodded once again.  She was mildly surprised at how gentle the powerful looking creature sounded, even with his intimidating voice.  She was even more surprised that they weren't acting like they were about to punish her, but rather more like amused teachers that were trying not to beam after having a 1st grade student solve a College level Calc problem.

            Archer and Amana shared a look, but said nothing further.

            "Am I in trouble?" Willow finally asked when she could stand the suspense no longer.

            "Trouble?" Amana repeated in a surprised, and somewhat amused, tone.  "Why my dear Willow, what could possibly make you think that you are in trouble?"

            Willow was slightly thrown by Amana's carefree attitude, especially after how nervous Goku seemed when he explained why he was so upset this morning.  Nevertheless, she was still expecting at the very least a punishment of some kind.  "The way Goku reacted this morning, when I told him about what we'd done, he explained that magic-users of a low rank, such as myself, are not allowed to perform spells or magic of any kind outside of the Mage Tower without instructions or permission from the Mage Council or the Arch Mages.  I, uh, I kinda never got your permission to, uh, do any spells after our lesson yesterday.  I apologize."

            "Apology accepted, however unneeded it was," Amana graciously received.

            Now Willow was really confused.  Archer, seeing her confusion, took it upon himself to try and alleviate it.  "Fear not young one," Archer spoke in rumbling tones, "You, nor the friends that aided you are in any trouble whatsoever.  We, on the other hand, are the ones that are in trouble."

            Willow furrowed her brow as she stared up at the minotaur.  "I don't understand.  Why are you in trouble?"

            "Because Willow," Amana picked up, "We highly underestimated you.  No one in over a half millennium at the Compound has been able to pass the first _week_ of knowledge training in their first _day_!  So…allowances were made for this one instance Willow.  You see, you've already skipped five levels of rank Willow.  By performing those spells last night, including a memory clean spell on your past self, you have merely confirmed our suspicions as well as our plans to advance your training.  You are now at the rank of _Sage_ Willow."

            Willow was speechless.  She didn't know what to say, so she didn't say anything.  She just stared nearly open mouthed, in shock, at the two Arch Mages.

            "We will be advancing your training young Sage," Archer informed her.  "And before we continue with it, I would like to make a request of you."

            "Anything!" Willow blurted after she had computed the request.

            "My name, my true name, is Ralleg-Giseg-walix-Borah.  I prefer Archer.  Not Arch Mage, not Teacher, or whatever other names my friend Amana told you to call her in public.  I'm just Archer and that is all I want to be called.  You think you could handle that little one?" Archer explained.

            Willow smiled up at the black furred man-beast.  "Archer," she said simply and nodded.  Then her brow furrowed again as a look of concentration crossed her face.  Then a look of inspiration and awe and at the same time fear replaced it.  "You-you, you're a, a, you're a Guardian!  A Guardian of the Crossroads of the Plains!  The Lord and—"

            "NO!" Archer suddenly erupted at Willow's babbling.  As violent as his reaction was, he immediately calmed down and repeated much softer, "No.  You are mistaken Sage, I am not the Lord Borah of the Crossroads of the Plains.  That is my father, my older brother, and my nephew.  I am merely a member of a prestigious family, and an extremely powerful mage.  I apologize for my outburst."

            "It's ok," Willow nodded quietly.  "I take it that you don't get along that well with your family?"

            Archer said nothing, but he did look up in surprise at the elfin redhead.  She nodded in understanding.  "I don't get along too well with my family either.  Especially not my mother.  To her I'm nothing but another study, or a textbook case of teenage psychobabble.  As for my father…" Willow stopped talking and turned her back on the assemblage in the room.

            The silence extended into the realm of uncomfortable until Willow felt like she would either have to confess her entire soul to these two strangers, or just try and move on past the unpleasantness her statement had caused.

            "So, advanced training.  I guess I'd better get started then, hadn't I?" Willow looked expectedly at the Arch Mages.

            Amana looked up at the minotaur beside her and showed a genuine smile.  Archer looked down and returned the gesture, then nodded.  Before Willow could even blink again, she suddenly found all of them, except for the robots and the two attendants, back in the cement square reading room she had been taken to yesterday.  She looked worriedly at Archer, afraid that he'd be stooped over from the low ceiling, but she was surprised to see that either the room had expanded, or it was a different room, because the ceiling was now more than high enough to accommodate the nine-foot tall bull creature.

            "This is going to be much similar to the exercises yesterday Willow," Amana informed her.  "The only difference is, that there will only ever be one book on the table at one time.  When you have finished and truly learned all there is to learn from it, the book will disappear, and another will appear to take its place.  After you have finished with all of the books that we send to you, we will come and test you.  Any questions Sage?"

            While Amana spoke, Willow had rounded the table and was now standing behind the chair she would sit in.  "What kind of books will you be sending?" Willow asked, expecting a courier to bring them until she remembered where she was and what Amana had said about the books disappearing and appearing on the table by themselves.

            Archer remained unreadable, but Amana, Willow thought, looked like she was about to break out into soft chuckles.  She didn't but she still looked like she might.  "We will be sending you the entire library.  And if time permits, a few choice selections from our personal collections." Amana answered.

            Willow's eyes widened in shock.  "But…I…but I haven't even read all of the books in _Giles'_ Library!!  I mean…well, yeah ok I've read all of his demonology, occult, and witchcraft books, and the Watcher diaries, and more than half the poetry section, and then all the technical and scientific non-fictional sections, and the…"

            "We get the point Willow," Archer interrupted her, seeing a trend in her ability to run at the mouth a little.  "We shall leave you to your studies now.  We'll both return when you complete."

            And with that, both the minotaur and the human vanished in flashes of orange, and red and yellow light.  Willow sighed as she turned to the table, seeing a rather modern looking book already on the table.  She sat down, opened it and began to read.

            "OWW!" Buffy screamed as she hit the wall a seventh time in half as many minutes.  And as before, she just gritted her teeth and pushed herself off ran right back into the fighting between her, Xander and Goku.

            Even though Goku was stronger and at the rate they were training, Buffy and Xander were more evenly matched, rather than let them face each other or team up on him or face him alone, Goku had them sparring in a free-for-all.  Which basically means that there is no team, it is every single person for them self.  If Buffy were attacking Goku, and Goku only defending, Buffy couldn't count on Xander fighting Goku as well, thereby ganging up on him.  Xander might as well attack her as he would Goku.  Or vice versa.

            Buffy jumped back into the sparring session with a flying roundhouse kick that would have connected painfully with Goku's head…if it had stayed in the same place.  Goku's head disappeared in a blur of movement a second before Buffy would have hit him, leaving the Slayer slightly imbalanced when she landed.  A perfect opportunity for the hyena-like Xander to move in with a tiger strike, which she barely managed to dodge herself.

            Suddenly Buffy found herself on the defense as Xander kept moving at her and Goku also began to move against her.  She blocked a kick from Xander with her forearm and then ducked under a slow punch from Goku and then tried to attack Xander, but had to switch her punch to another block to avoid Xander's punch and Goku's simultaneous high kick.

            Buffy knew better than to try and block any of Goku's attacks, since even the weakest would send her careening back towards the wall.  She ducked and blocked Xander's kick and another hit and tried to swing around for a sweep of Goku's leg, but the 1/8th Saiyan was too fast and jumped up and flipped away from the sparring two.

            With the small reprieve from two attackers to one, Buffy counted her blessings and took on Xander full force and speed before Goku turned his attention back to them.  She blocked a high-speed punch from Warrior X and threw her own directly at his face as hard as she could.  She was momentarily dismayed at being satisfied to hear a crunch of bone as his jaw and nose potentially shattered.

She didn't let up as she brought her right leg up into the Warrior's ribs and jumped up and brought her left leg across his head at the same speed and power of her punch.  She didn't even wait for him to go down, knowing that he would, as she felt a minor cramp and turned at an impressive speed and held her clenched fists and forearms before her face, before she'd even seen Goku's fist flying towards it.

She successfully absorbed the attack and considered striking out with her own when she felt an additional hit on her shoulder, knocking her back some feet.  It was immediately followed by a solid hit to the middle of her back, knocking her to the floor.  Still, Buffy managed to keep her fists together and up.

When no more attacks immediately came, Buffy tried tapping into her ESP power sense thingy and determine exactly where Goku was.  Thankfully, she found him, some six feet right in front of her.

With no other thought or plan other than to attack, Buffy pushed herself to her feet and raced almost blindly straight at the dark fighter.  She no longer had any form or pattern to her attacks; she just punched or kicked wildly at the air, the air where Goku had, as always, been just an instant before.  She always managed to track him; she just couldn't move fast enough to attack him.

Finally, Goku had had enough.  After everything that they had done today, both Slayer and Warrior X were, if anything, getting worse.  Sure, their physical strength was slowly increasing, as well as their speed, and their ability to adapt to the higher gravities, but unfortunately, their fighting ability was dropping faster than a stone in a black hole.

Before Slayer could throw her next punch, Goku caught it, crushed her hand, again, and then backhanded her so hard that her head was twisted 180° in a bone-crushing blow.  Slowly, her skin covered with the blood and bruises of her ordeals, Buffy dropped to her knees and fell to the ground, dead.

As Xander, first, began to glow in the familiar golden light of the Powers, Goku sighed and pulled out his Global.  Before he did anything more though, both Slayer and Warrior X were revived.  "We're done for today.  Go back to your apartment and get some sleep.  You'll have a tougher day tomorrow, understand?"

Groaning, and despite the rush of energy from being revived, Buffy and Xander both felt tired and nodded, getting to their feet and going to the MTC.

"Think he was a little harsh today?" Xander asked as quiet as he could.

Buffy shook her head.  "Naw, it's not that.  He's just frustrated.  We're probably the weakest most pathetic recruits he's ever had.  I mean, look at how he treats us!  And he hasn't even done that 'power up' thing that he did the first day we were here!"  Buffy sighed her self as they reached the portal.  "If it's the last thing that I do here Xander, I am going to get Goku to face me as a Super Saiyan, and I am going to win." The Slayer vowed.

"Buff, believe me," Xander supported, "I would like to see nothing more.  Well, you and Kathy Ireland in string bikinis in a hot tub come a close second, but Goku beat and bloody on the floor is definitely number one."

Buffy giggled slightly as she activated the MTC and set coordinates for their apartment.

Goku, meanwhile, had heard everything they'd said and couldn't help smiling at the thought of an ordinary…ok, not so ordinary human, a Slayer, but still a human, forcing him to transform to Super Saiyan to match her.  It was laughable.

He turned back to his log.  And the requisitions he had to fill out before the start of the next day.

_Trainer's Log: Trainer #253810572     Codename: _Saiyaman__

_The second day of training has gone much the way the first had, at least for Slayer and Warrior X.  Watcher, as predicted, after receiving the 'Nightblade' has spent a great majority of his time meditating, according to his teammates only stopping to eat or rest, and even then only for short time periods._

_Willow, the mage of my new team has already been reported on, and on follow-up, I've been told by Arch Mage 2 that she is receiving the necessary training to ensure that the mistakes she has made so far will not be made again.  Also I'm told that Willow, uh I mean, Sage has met her secondary magick instructor, Arch Mage 3, Archer.  Hopefully if she is as talented as we all think her to be, then she will catch up enough that I can continue her physical training tomorrow._

_Slayer, I have noticed, has a strange affinity for Will-_**Sage**_.  I would almost call it sisterly concern, if not for the fact that Willow treats Buffy the same way, and when I see them together like that, I just get the impression that there's something more between them._

_For tomorrow I have requisitioned the secondary training.  Normally, with most this would wait until their physical standards are up to peak, usually around the second week, but with the exception of Slayer, I doubt that _any_ of them will be any more ready than they are now.  The only way that I can see to advance their training is to increase it, and until they actually learn how to handle the Secondary Training, I can't do that.  No doubt Buffy's going to complain about her hair getting wet._

End of Log Entry: 243510141997 

_Third Day:_

            "Cool.  Very cool," Buffy commented on their surroundings as her team stepped out of the MTC with Goku.  "Where the hell are we?  It's obviously not any of the gyms we've been to so far."

            "No, no it's not.  Slayer, Watcher, Sage, Warrior X, welcome to _'Second Training'_, " Goku said almost theatrically, gesturing as such towards the incredibly huge room they found themselves in.

            Actually to say it's huge is only half right.  The top half was huge.  Huge like the Sears tower is to the thickness of a penny.  It was the bottom half that made it unbelievably, unimaginably huge.  For the most part, gray was the obvious primary color, but also the entire room, since it in fact only makes up a single wing of a large building, was just a giant cylinder.  The top half was made up of about five levels.  The bottom level, they would find out was just an access from the bottom half to the top half, and the next to bottom level was preparation/locker room area for entering the bottom half.  Leaving the top three levels for everything else.

            The third, or central level was designed as a preparation/testing/training area for the training done in the bottom half, and was actually the level that Slayer and her team were on right now.  The top two levels were entirely different.  The top level was to be the last of their "Secondary Training" involving learning to use the various training or other technologies the Compound made regular.  It was the second level that Goku was anxious to move to, but again, there were rules.

            "Ok, I'll bite," Xander spoke up taking a look at the room they were in, "What's '_Second Training_', and that sounds like it has emphasis."

            Goku smirked at him.  "It does.  Not all of the fighters here are faced with opponents from the same environments, as you might be used to.  This is to teach you how to fight, and fight _well_ in various other environments.  To the extreme.  I'll be handling two of the environments in your regular training, this is to take care of the third."

            "And that would be?" Willow asked, worry in her voice.

            "Underwater," Goku said as he walked away, going to speak to some alien that they assumed was in charge.

            "Oh shit," three teenage voices rang out in unison.  While a fourth, older and with an English accent said, "Oh dear."

            Thirty minutes later, Slayer and team were being briefed on what their new training regimen required and involved.  Buffy, for once in her as yet short life was paying active and close attention, knowing that she would be seriously embarrassed, not to mention dead for several minutes if she didn't and screwed up somewhere.

            The one giving the "briefing" wasn't Goku, who actually had left saying that the technicians and so forth here would take care of them and tell them exactly what to do.  The creature standing before them, as they sat on metal bleacher type benches, was actually rather aquatic looking himself.  He actually looked somewhat like they imagined humans would look like if they evolved from whales or dolphins rather than monkeys.

            "Now, first of all, my name is Chedwindallawhee!, but most humans call me Chad." The whale man introduced himself.  "Don't worry about introducing yourselves, I already know your names.  What we're going to be doing here is preparing you for any chance that you may have an underwater or possibly even space, meaning no atmosphere, fight on your hands.  First things that we will be doing is testing each of yours lung capacities and how long you can survive without oxygen in your systems.  Don't worry, everyone here is immortal so in case you were planning on asking, yes, you will die."

            Chad then gestured behind him at large water tank in the distance.  "That is what we like to call the 'Air Tank.'  Its filled with a special fluid unique to several planets connected to the Compound and we've found a way of artificially reproducing it.  It allows those that breathe oxygen and nitrogen naturally even though it is in liquid form and they are technically "underwater", it's the same as being in a real atmosphere.  We use that, after we're sure your breathing capacity is up to par, to teach you how to more or less move accurately underwater.  It's a lot harder than you might think, because you have to move just as fast as you do on land, and sometimes faster."

            "After that, and you've met all the requirements for that, we will take you to the Bottom Level as we like to call it.  There you use everything you've learned up till then on fighting in a liquid, non-breathable atmosphere.  After that, if you manage to graduate Secondary Training, then you might just be lucky enough to get a couple training sessions in the Bottom half of this facility."

            Buffy raised her hand.  Chad, giving his species equivalent of raising his eyebrows in curiosity (which actually wasn't that different, just take away the eyebrows), nodded his head for her to speak.

            "When you say bottom half…" she left it hanging for a moment, but Chad quickly picked it up.

            "The Bottom Half of this facility is completely underwater, equal in depth as the Top Half is in height, but capable of pressures beyond the core of a White Dwarf star." Chad answered.

            Buffy looked around in confusion.

            Chad chuckled briefly as he understood her confusion.  "Sorry.  This is actually just the Third Floor of the Top Half.  There are two more levels nearly identical in size above it, though the Top Level might be a few centimeters higher, and two more beneath us.  The Bottom Level is actually completely submerged as well, while the Fourth Level is more or less one giant multi-chambered airlock.  The entire Bottom Half though is equal to size as all five levels, just not sectioned off."

            All the human's eyes widened as the idea of the true size of this place truly sunk in.  Xander summed it all up best with his next word.  "Whoa."

            Chad nodded and said, "Indeed."

            "Now, first things first, testing your current lung capacity, then we'll work on your system's ability to cope without oxygen.  This way please," Chad walked away, waving them after him.  They all quickly raced to catch up.

            They all soon came to an open area where Chad was waiting for them.  Buffy and Xander especially noticed the rather large fish-tank-like structure filled with water…and a lid.  However Chad directed them to something that looked like a clear tower with measuring lines on it connected to a hose.

            "This is a Anthological Respiratory Capacity and Expansion Measurement Device.  Or for short, Breathometer.  It measures your lung capacity, your lung strength, and your respiratory effectiveness.  You take this tube," Chad explained, picking up the tube, "place it in your mouth," he pointed at the mouthpiece on the end, "and then try and blow into it, trying to get the measuring object as high as possible.  By the time you're through with this course, at the end of five weeks for average, most humans are able to keep it at the very top for thirty or a few seconds longer.  I myself, and my species, can keep it at the top for over three hours."

            Buffy smiled a little wanly and added in a dull, sarcastic voice, "You must be so proud."

            Chad gave her an expression of annoyance or mild anger, but then he suddenly smiled, if not somewhat darkly.  "Well Ms. Smart-mouth, why don't you go first?  Let's see how long you can last."  With that, Chad handed her the tube, and Buffy found her feet carrying her close enough to accept it, and her arm taking it and fitting the mouthpiece into her orifice.

            _'Well, here goes,'_ Buffy thought as she took a deep breath, as deep as she could manage and put the hose to her mouth, and blew.  And blew.  And blew.  Right around the time that Buffy's face was turning beet red, a very dark red, a small rubber ball began to peak over the bottom of the tube and agonizingly slowly began to creep up a mark at a time, until the top of it reached right around the fifth from the bottom mark before Buffy looking like she was about to pass out, and a very disturbing shade of violet, spat the tube out of her mouth and collapsed on the floor, gasping for breath.

            The ball, for measuring purposes remained frozen in the tube where Chad marked Buffy's "score" as a three, the middle of the ball.  Buffy saw this, since he made the mark up on a big screen with her and her team's names at the top.

            "A _three_?!  You gave me a stinking three!?" Buffy gasped out.

            Chad gave his version of a shrug, which consisted of making a symbol with his hand that might have normally been misconstrued by the humans if not for their implants.  "You actually did very impressive," he complimented.  "Most humans can't even get the ball to crest the surface, let alone get it any higher.  You must not be an average human to have this much lung power."

            Buffy slowly, once the dizziness had subsided, got to her feet, letting Xander and Giles support her.  "Yeah well, I'm pretty strong for my size," Buffy answered the compliment, almost falling over again.

            "Watcher, you're next," Chad called.

            Both Watcher and Warrior X had what Chad called, "To be expected," results.  But when Sage, Willow, came around…

            "All right Sage, you're up," Chad handed the refreshed/sanitized tube to the redhead.

            Tentatively, Willow took the tube and took several big gulps of air, then let all of her air out slowly, and then took over ten seconds refilling her lungs.  Then she put the mouthpiece to her lips and began to exhale into the tube.  The ball instantly shot from the bottom of the tube to the very top where it stopped.  Willow wasn't looking at the tube, rather Buffy in front of her who was staring back.

            Chad and the other two warriors _were_ watching however and their collective jaws dropped straight through to the Bottom Half.  As they continued to stare at the readout, and Willow continued to exhale into the tube, the ball began to…_flatten_.  As though the force of pressure being put against it was increasing until it was almost smushed flat.  When Willow began to flush a little, over a minute after she started, the ball was less than an inch thick, where it had been over three just a minute ago.

            As the observers kept watch, something else began to happen.  The Tube suddenly shot up an extra foot, but the flattened ball remained where it was, until it began to move mark by mark up the added foot till it was about two thirds of the way to the new top.  After that point, it began to slow on its climb, but it still continued.  By the time that it reached the top of the additional foot, Willow was catching up on how purple Buffy had looked earlier, three whole minutes after she had started the test.  It remained at the top for a total of thirty-seven seconds before it suddenly took a nose-dive back to the bottom when Willow collapsed to the floor, passed out and with the hose still in her mouth.

            "Willow!" Buffy yelled as she ripped the hose from her best friend's mouth and tried to determine if Willow was conscious, or even breathing anymore.

            Fortunately, in the next few seconds, Willow started coughing and color began to return to her cheeks.  Buffy breathed a heavy sigh of relief and just held Willow in her arms, making sure that the redhead was getting enough air.

            "Are you okay Willow?" Buffy asked softly.  Apparently, though, loud enough for Chad to hear her as he shouted in the next instant, "OK!  Is she _OK_!  She's way more than OK Ms. Small guppy!  She's off the charts!  Only an Aquarian has that much natural lung capacity for humanoids!  I don't suppose you're friend there happens to be part alien?"

            "No, she just tends to babble on without taking a breath," Xander answered.  "At last count, her record was five and a half minutes of non-stop talking without taking a single breath.  And then she was just red-faced."

            "Five…minutes…?" Chad stuttered, shock radiating off him in waves.

            "Well, we didn't exactly have a stopwatch…" Warrior X trailed off as the whale man raced off and said something excitedly to another technician or whatever.

            "No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!  That's not what I meant!" Chad exclaimed angrily at him.  "I meant that she actually exhaled into the tube for _five minutes_!  That's never been done before, and especially by a _human_!!"

            "Wait a sec I thought you just said that you could keep that ball at the top for over _three hours_ and Willow's keeping it up for five minutes has you jumping like it's the second coming?!" Xander argued.

            Chad gave him an annoyed glare.  "My species' natural environment is in deep sea and ocean environments, but this girl gave the equivalent lung pressure to survive at a minimum of 5 miles beneath sea level.  And she held it for five minutes.  The most that even I can survive at 5 miles below is only ten minutes, and that's with the added training that I have.  So that this girl can do it naturally…you can see why I'm impressed?"

            Xander blinked and looked at the still huddled forms of Buffy and Willow, who was breathing better, not regular, but better.  Then he looked over at the stoic Giles and then back to the whale man in front of them.  "Sure."

            Chad just flipped him off once again and called over another technician, who he whispered something that none of them could make out before the technician scurried off to take care of whatever Chad had asked him to do.

            "Uhm…moving on," Chad said moving closer to the two girls, "as soon as Sage is able to walk again, we'll be making our way over to the vacuum training.  We've already got all the readings we need for the moment…"

            "What the hell do we need training to clean carpets for?" Xander interrupted.

            Giles rolled his eyes and snorted, while Chad shrugged his shoulders at Xander, which according to his implant _was_ like flipping him off, and scowled at the youth.  "Shut up and meet me over there when your friend ************** " the string of syllables was lost on the humans whose implants refused to translate them into English, but still gave the meaning that was similar to "catching her breath" or "gets her energy back" or "finishes excreting her fishes."  The last one didn't make that much sense but the meaning was clear enough with the first two.

            When Willow had regained her strength, enough to walk without falling over from the dizzy spells, some ten minutes or more later, the team joined Chad over where he had directed them.  The area was quite a bit different from the last.  Where that had been a more or less opened area with several to many machines scattered about, this area was cramped as small as possible to fit as much into a smaller space.

            It looked like nothing but solid metal squeezed into a ten by 14 foot space, with only computer consoles connected to it on the outside and then two very distinct features that were the only true hints at the nature of the area.  A rectangular window that viewed into a small yellow lit chamber, and a door bigger than almost anything the humans had ever seen, but just small enough still fit _on_ the chamber.

            There were at least three other technicians present here besides Chad when Slayer and her team approached.  The technicians, similar to Chad and obviously the same species, ignored them, but Chad looked up from the console he was at and gave them a slight grin, and a concerned glance at Willow.

            "Feeling better?" he asked.  The redhead mage grinned back and nodded silently.

            "Good!" he exclaimed and turned back to the console.

            The humans exchanged several looks as Chad offered no more comments.  Finally Buffy just shrugged and stepped forward to address the whale man, saying, "Soooo, what is it exactly that's next in this "Second Training" of yours?  Learning the proper use of modern cleaning supplies?"

            The three technicians and Chad all gave the sign equivalent of rolling eyes and continued to ignore the fighters, chattering away in their native language with one another.

            {I can't believe that _every_ human that comes through here tells that stupid joke when we bring them to this part of the evaluation} the first technician complained.

            {I know what you mean, but humor is often the only defense mechanism most humans have.  I don't blame them, only suffer.  Besides, I would not underestimate _these_ humans.  Especially that redhead.  She got a 79 on the Lung capacitor!}

            {Seventy-nine!  A human!} the second technician exclaimed.

            {The only humans to have reached _any_ level past fifty is…} the third trailed off.  They all knew what he was referring to.

            After that, the technicians worked in silence, or as silent as it can ever get on the 3rd level, until they had completed the preliminary checks and prepped the vacuum chamber for the humans.  Chad turned back to Buffy to explain what was to happen.

            "This is called the Vacuum Chamber.  Quite simply because of it's purpose, to create a stable vacuum of atmosphere.  No air, no dust molecules, nothing, and because of that, no sound either.  One of you at a time will enter here and we will activate the chamber, taking out the air.  You will exhale as the air is removed until you have no more breath, and then you will stay alive for as long as possible.  This is _supposed_ to kill you.  Its just how long you last that we are looking at."

            Buffy and the others just stared in muted shock as Chad's statement struck home.  _'Immortal, remember, we're Immortal, gotta keep reminding myself that,'_ Buffy and the others found themselves entertaining the same thoughts.

            "Oh, o-okay, so uh, through here?" Buffy asked, pointing at the door.  Thinking it better to remain silent, Chad nodded, Buffy nodded back and walked towards the incredibly large door, which opened like those blast doors on Star Wars, very fast and with a loud hiss.  Arching an eyebrow, Buffy just swallowed her fear as only a Slayer could and stepped through the door into a bright white clean room, at the other end of which was a near identical door to the one that closed just behind her, except the same clean white as the rest of the room.

            Suddenly Chad's voice spoke up, as though from a loudspeaker, "_This is an airlock.  In just a few moments we're going to start pumping in larger amounts of nitrogen to help your body cope with the sudden changes in atmospheres.  Most humans reported that their ears pop during this phase, but I advise you to keep your breathing normal, keep yourself from hyperventilating or yawning.  We'll be opening the other end into the primary chamber in a few moments._"

            Buffy nodded her understanding, figuring, though not seeing, that a camera was somewhere in the room.  After a few moments, as promised Buffy' felt her ears begin to pop, but not painfully or even that annoyingly, and several moments after that the door in front of her suddenly and rapidly hissed open, revealing the same yellow chamber that she had seen through the rectangle view port, which she could now see from _this_ end and all the others on the other side.  She could see the worried look on Willow's face.  She just hoped that they couldn't see the same anxiousness on her face as easily.

            "She looks scared," Willow commented silently to Xander and Giles on either side of her.

            "Well, considering that she _is_ in what is essentially a death chamber," Xander answered, "I think that she has full and legal right to be scared Willow."

            "Well, yeah, that's a good point and all, but we are immortal now, right?" the pure innocence in Willow's question drew both men to place their hands in silent support for comfort on the girl's shoulders.  Still, she frowned and looked anxiously back at Buffy, who looked at her and actually gave a half smile at the redhead.

            Giles seemed to be the only one to note the interaction between the two girls, that Buffy somehow seemed to make herself look more confident, less scared than she had been a few seconds before Willow and her eyes caught.  Giles gave a half-smirk as he patted Willow's shoulder and gave a fatherly nod to Buffy in the vacuum chamber.  The blonde smiled and nodded back.

            At the next moment, the technicians became extremely active as Chad spoke through a microphone to Buffy.  "_Slayer, now we need you to listen.  Here's what we're going to do,_" Chad began.  "_We're going to start draining the air in a few moments, once we've set everything up, especially the sensors that monitor your vitals.  You'll feel a slight breeze as that happens.  As it is happening, we need you to exhale as much as possible, and as slow as you can.  Not all at once and try not to hold anything back.  And it is extremely, _extremely_ important that you try to keep from inhaling to as little as you can.  And if you try and hold your breath, your lungs will explode, so please remember to _exhale_ when the breeze starts!_"

            Chad looked at another screen for several moments after Buffy's tense nod of understanding, and then he leaned back over to the microphone.  "_We'll be ready to start in another seventy-five seconds.  Now most humans that can actually control themselves have been able to keep going for at least fifteen minutes.  The others…that _can't_ control themselves and keep trying to breathe in the vacuum usually pass out in the first two minutes and are declared dead three minutes after that.  For a higher score, please try and control yourself, and if you want to last longer, then minimize your physical activity as well.  But do keep in mind that you don't come out of there until you're dead.  Understood?_"

            Gulping, Buffy nodded and tried to keep herself from hyperventilating, but was only marginally succeeding.  Some twenty seconds later, when Buffy was just getting her heavy breathing under control, Chad announced through the loudspeaker that they were beginning.

            Buffy felt the "breeze" almost immediately and took a big gulp of air before she slowly started exhaling.  She kept reminding herself that she had to keep exhaling and try and keep from naturally drawing in breath, because there would be none.

            After thirty or so seconds, Buffy felt the breeze taper off and she was scraping to keep exhaling, her lungs starting to feel heavy and constricted.  Once she felt that she had given all she could, she felt all the blood rushing to her head and she quit trying to blow out breath and made the same action as holding her breath, except she wasn't struggling to hold it in, she was struggling to keep from _bringing_ it in.  She managed to hold her posture for, by her count, maybe forty-five or more seconds before her panic response became too strong to ignore and she opened her mouth and tried to take a breath.  Only there was no air to breathe, and her panic response went into over time, trying desperately to get air into the Slayer's lungs, giving Buffy choking reactions.

            Buffy's head was rushed with blood, she could hear her heartbeat in her ears and her eyes began to feel like they bulging out of their sockets.  She managed to regain control of herself after maybe a minute of desperate struggles to remove any obstructions, which were not there, from her airways or maybe get some kind of air supply to them.

            Buffy also noted, almost casually that there was suddenly no sound.  Where she had footsteps before, now it was like her ears were wrapped in cotton.  Except for her heartbeat ofcourse, which was getting to be very rapid.

            After two to three minutes, Buffy began to feel dizzy from the oxygen deprivation and was turning red, purple, and now a funny kind of blue.  When Buffy was in control enough to look, she saw Willow and the other staring at her nervously, their postures speaking of the dread in their hearts.  She tried to give them the same half smile that she had before, hoping to give them the impression that she was still all right, but she wasn't sure if she had succeeded, her body was beginning to go numb.

            Goku had just finished speaking with the Wing Director about getting his trainees into the Second Level training, and was feeling in quite a good mood, since he had indeed gotten what he was after.  It took a lot of persuasion on his part, a _whole_ lot, as well as some bribery and paying nearly double the training fees that he normally would have if he was willing to wait the weeks that most had to, but he was not willing to wait, so he paid it.  For some reason, the allotted credits more than covered the standard Second Level Secondary Training package.  So Goku had gotten the Premium.

            He checked the time as he walked back along the Third Level.  _'Hm, they should just be finishing up at the Vacuum Chamber,'_ Goku thought as he made his way to the dreaded decompression chamber area.

            What he saw surprised him.  Four technicians, including Chad among them, and Giles, Willow and Xander were all staring, wide-eyed and shocked at who he assumed to be Slayer in the Vacuum Chamber, but he couldn't see that well into the view port.

            He came up behind his recruits and asked, "Where's Slayer?  Don't tell me she went last?"

            "No, she went first," Willow answered in a dull, dead voice.

            "Then…what are you all still doing out here?" the Saiyan asked, confused.

            "Waiting our turn to die apparently," Xander snapped, all attention still on the view port.

            "You mean to tell me that you've only just _started_ the Vacuum tests!" Goku exclaimed, turning his attention on Chad, who was staring in just as much shock as the humans were at the view port.

            Softly growling to himself, Goku stepped around them to see himself what lay behind the clear material.  He stopped and dropped his jaw as he saw Slayer _pacing_ there in the vacuum environment.  She looked like hell, her skin deathly and dangerously pale, her eyes bloodshot, and her hands trembling.  It was the most amazing sight Goku had ever seen.

            Goku himself had lasted up to ten minutes with struggling activity his first time in the chamber.  He could now last up to over three quarters of an hour in a complete vacuum, comfortably.  He could stretch himself to over an hour and a half, but then he would pass out, dying thirty minutes later.  The thing is, he looked as bad as Buffy did only two minutes after his first test had started.

            "How long as she been in there?" Goku asked, his voice suddenly mimicking the same quiet that Willow and Xander's had.

            Chad looked at something on some console and answered after a moment, "For over 15 minutes now.  With moderate struggling shortly after vacuum pressure was sealed.  After that she's just gotten…well seemingly more aggressive as the minutes pass.  Her vitals are steady however, despite somewhat elevated.  We're also recording this.  You don't mind that do you?"

            Goku numbly shook his head.  He stepped forward, wondering how Buffy was feeling.

            Buffy had lost track of the time.  For all she knew at the moment, she had been born in this vacuum.  Her head was starting to ache, and way worse than the one migraine she'd had shortly after her rumble with Lothos in L.A., and she was getting really, really dizzy.

It didn't stop her from pacing though.  She wasn't sure why she had started.  She vaguely remembered somebody…who?…maybe Flipper.  Yeah, Flipper.  She remembered Flipper telling her something about being still makes you stay in here longer.  Well, she wanted to get out as soon as possible, and the only way she could see to do that at the moment was to keep moving and do as much as possible to _not_ stay still.

Just then, she caught a glimpse of something, movement, out of the corner of her eye.  She stopped pacing and turned to face whatever it was, working with only basic instincts at the moment.

She immediately recognized Goku.  The tall, dark 1/8th Saiyan Trainer had stopped his approach when Buffy had turned towards him.  She remembered the pain of the past two days, the anger at his arrogance, the indifference he felt towards her friends, the confusion of what was going on, and most especially, how he treated her as though she were some kind of burden that he was forced to deal with, that he didn't want her.

            She was working with only primal, basic instincts at the moment, the oxygen deprivation having warped her view of many things.  She was the Slayer.  A predator, a hunter, a being of pride and not afraid of many, if any, things.  She attacked.

            Goku was surprised when Buffy suddenly stopped her pacing at his approach and turned to look at him.  He stopped and looked back at her, a blank look of surprise on his face.  She had one of confusion, of contemplation on hers.  For several moments, the two warriors just stared at each other, Goku wondering what was going through the Slayer's head.

            Then, as suddenly as a vampire could turn, Buffy snarled and he imagined if she had been capable of making audible sound that she would be growling like one too, when she attacked, running almost head first into the see-through plate of material.

            Rather than be knocked out by the action, the opposite was true.  The material actually looked like it might have rattled with the impact as Buffy stepped back and stared, almost uncomprehendingly at the space.  She reached out a hand and felt the material, but seemed frustrated that she couldn't see it.

            She looked back at Goku, and their eye met briefly, and Goku, for once in his time at the Compound, was truly afraid for his life at that look.  She snarled again and this time rammed her fist, _hard_ into the material.  The same effect happened, but Buffy wasn't about to stop.  She lifted her fist back and hit it again in the same spot, and again, and again, and again.

            Ten minutes later, Buffy's punches were coming as strong and regular as ever, and the girl only looked angrier.  By this time, several more technicians had come over to observe the warrior's behavior…and her endurance.

            She had been in vacuum for nearly twenty-five minutes now, and during twenty of those minutes in very active physical activity.  That she was still conscious, let alone going at her pace, was more than merely astonishing, it was unprecedented.  Especially by humans, and a good portion of other humanoid species as well.

            "How long has she been in there now?" Goku asked Chad for the third time.

            Chad checked the monitor and answered distractedly, "Almost thirty minutes now.  This girl is amazing.  Not only did she get a _three_ on the Breathometer, but _this_!"  The other technicians heartily agreed with Chad, but gave little comment, they were all too busy saving and recording the data from the sensors in the chamber.

            Suddenly, a loud bang could be heard.  It was soon follow by a second, louder bang.  Then a third, a fourth, a fifth, a _sixth_, each slightly louder than the last.  "What is that?" Willow asked amidst the bangs.

            "I'm not sure…" Chad trailed off as they all looked at the view port and saw Buffy banging away at the clear material, each bang corresponding to each hit against the rattling panel.

            "Impossible…" one of the other technicians whispered in awe.

            Suddenly, as suddenly as the banging had started, Buffy's punches became twice as fast and looked twice as strong as well, and the banging turned into dull thuds that rattled the clear panel view port twice as much as it had been.  After several of these hits, a scuff appeared on the point that Buffy was hitting.

            After thirty solid minutes, and five minutes of the heavy hitting, Buffy actually began to look tired, well it would be more accurate to say that she looked like she was about to pass out at any second, but her hits just kept on coming.  The scuff had become large enough to mark her entire fist, and the dull thud had become banging once more.

            An alarm suddenly went off at one of the consoles, one of the technicians quickly checked it and told the rest present, "She'll be passing out soon.  The oxygen in her blood is almost at complete zero."

            Everyone nodded, but most, particularly Goku, Giles, Willow and Xander, kept their eyes on Buffy, still punching at the spot.  After a couple more minutes, Buffy's punches looked like they were losing strength, and the hits became irregular.  Indeed, it looked as though the Slayer would pass out at any moment, but she was still on her feet and hitting at the wall, still wanting to get at Goku.

            When Chad announced forty minutes, Buffy's hits had slowed to one every two to three seconds instead of two every second.  Finally, the girl stopped her hits, and had she been capable of breathing, most imagined she'd be panting with breath right now.  Goku stepped forward again, and as before the same scowl returned and everyone could see the muscles in the blonde's arms tensing.

            She was putting all of the last of her strength into the final punch, she knew it was the last of her strength, and if she succeeded in getting out of this prison the tormentor, Goku, had put her in, she knew she wouldn't have enough strength left to get at him with, but to get out of it might be enough to make him realize that she would not give up so easily.  That she was not a burden, she was something to keep, to be wanted.

            She cast one last look at the redhead.  Her eyesight had blurred so much that it looked as though the objects in her vision were at the end of a long tunnel, and when she looked at Willow, the girl's face and head were surrounded by a light so beautiful it almost made Buffy cry.  She looked back at Goku and her vision was clouded completely by a blood red color.  And then blackness.

            Buffy suddenly wavered on her feet and it looked as though she would not get to throw even that last punch, but just as she was tumbling to her knees, she threw her fist straight and true, though from outward appearances it wasn't that powerful, and hit the same mark.  It cracked in a spider-web pattern as Buffy fell back from her knees and lost consciousness.

            The technicians went crazy.

            "That's impossible!  Impossible!" one was yelling over and over.

            "She couldn't do that!  No one can do that!  She just couldn't do that!"

            "There is no way that could be done, no way!"

            "Her endurance is incredible, but her strength must be off the scale if she can do that!"

            "She's the strongest warrior we've had come here in a long time, that's for sure!"

            "Amazing!  Simply amazing!" Chad himself was saying.

            "What's so amazing about it?  You just killed her," Xander snapped at the whale man.  "So she went out fighting.  Big deal!"

            "No, no, that's not what I meant," Chad indicated the crack in the material.

            "That is a _quintescent_ sealed force field enriched polymer.  In short it is not easily broken, let alone _cracked_!  There are five layers of an incredibly strong material between here and there, and between each layer is a thin, low-level force field to aid in the stress of the vacuum environment.  That girl!  That girl just punched her way through those force fields, and _three_ if not four of those five layers!  It may not sound like much considering the strength of some of the fighters that are present at the Compound, but this girl is a first week trainee!  No one in here should _ever _be able to do what she just did."

            "Oh, well," Xander was saying, "Buff always has been kinda buff I guess you could say."

            Willow snickered at Xander's one-liner but said nothing else, staring in concern at Buffy's crumpled form in the vacuum chamber.  Shouldn't she be waking up by now, she asked herself.

            Goku and Giles saw Willow's concerned gaze, and when they saw the other had also noticed, they gave each other a brief look.  Goku nodded and stepped forward, putting his hand on Willow's shoulder.

            "Remember what we talked about yesterday Willow?  How the Compound views death?" Goku asked his trainee.

            Willow nodded silently, not reacting any further.

            "Good.  Just wanted to reinforce that.  And as for Buffy still lying there, she'll remain like that until her body is brought back into an environment with air in it.  For right now, it's kind of like she's in a kind of stasis, her body not functioning until it has what it needs to properly operate once again.  Until then…" Goku trailed off, Willow getting the idea pretty quickly.

            "So…"

            "Yeah," Goku interrupted her.  He turned to Chad and the technicians.  "If you don't mind guys, we do have a lot to get done today, so if we could go ahead and proceed with the tests?  We have to get moving on to the Second Level."

            Chad and another technician gave him something the Slayerettes thought resembled a look of utter disbelief and disregard, but said nothing immediately.  After a moment, and receiving data from one of the consoles, Chad answered the Trainer.

            "Yeah and I'm going to transfer to Hawaii and offer to be the fish sacrifice at the banquet of the Volcanoes," he said sarcastically.  "Yeah, go ahead monkey-boy, we can do, for now, without the others.  Besides, it's going to take the nanobots at least a couple hours to repair the damage that Slayer has already inflicted…"

            Willow and the others suddenly turned on Goku.  "Wait just a minute here!  Buffy's still in there, and we are not going _anywhere_ without her, especially in this place!"

            "Do not worry Sage," Chad answered her.  "We'll remove her, safely, before we begin repairs.  It'll just take some time to get the necessary equipment and protocols in place."

            "Well tell you what guys, why don't I just go inside and get her…" Xander suggested and started to make his way towards the big door.

            "You will do no such thing!!" the technicians shouted at him, Chad moving immediately to intercept him.

            "If you were to just _walk in_ there…that is a vacuumed environment youngling, and the environment in the outer airlock chamber and out here is very much the opposite!" Chad tried to explain.

            "So…?" Xander didn't get what the whale man was trying to say.

            "So if you open the door Xander, the entire chamber could explode," Willow answered coming up beside Xander.  "So, _Chad_, why don't you just run the test one more time, let one of us go in there after you run the airlock through its cycle and we'll bring Buffy out.  Hell, _I'll_ do it!"

            Chad put an arm on the redhead's arm before she could get too far.  "Uhm, well, you see…there are…protocols and, and certain programs that, that…that…"

            "Only one person can be in the main vacuum chamber at a time," Goku interrupted.  "The computer systems that control it won't let anyone else in until the chamber is confirmed empty.  And it takes nearly a week to fully replicate a new vacuum chamber, so we aren't allowed to destroy it."

            "So what are we supposed to do?" Willow wailed in near-despair.

            Goku shrugged and looked at Chad.  Chad chose to avoid Sage's glare and turned back to the other technicians who soon became busy doing other things, determined to get Slayer out of the vacuum chamber as soon as possible.

            While everyone else worked and worried, nobody noticed that the one thing they were all concerned about…had woken up.  Buffy's eyes suddenly snapped open when Willow wailed, her eyes looking normal and healthy, and much less red.  She still wasn't breathing, and her body hurt in places she was not aware were supposed to hurt, but she was conscious and still aware of her situation in the vacuum chamber.

            Slowly, carefully, and because she quickly became very dizzy, Buffy got to her feet, leaning heavily on the cracked glass, or whatever the hell it was.  Her vision was all fuzzy, and she could barely make out several things that she knew she should have recognized.

            _'Have to get out,'_ was her first and only thought.  She then turned and looked through the clear material and saw Willow looking worried and generally fretting.  More determined than ever now to get out Buffy turned around, looking for the way out that she knew was there.

            She saw the vague outline of the big door that led to the air lock, her vision was still very fuzzy so all she saw was a big fuzzy blob, but she was adequately sure that it led to the outside.  She slowly, carefully let go of her hold on the glass and tried moving her legs in the direction of the fuzzy blob.

            At first she could barely stand, but she soon forced the strength to her legs and managed to start walking, but then her dizziness began to affect her, but she remained as focused as she ever had been in her life, demanding her body do as she commanded it to.  It wasn't easy, but after several attempts of half-stumbling half-falling across the small room, Buffy almost slammed herself into the door, almost knocking herself out again, but remaining upright, conscious, and in a hell of a lot of pain.

            Suddenly, Willow looked through the view port, drawn there by some feeling in the back of her neck.  Her eyes widened at what she saw.  "Buffy?" she whispered so silently that no one else could hear her.

            That single soft spoken word stopped all the commotion and whatever arguing as every eye in the area turned sharply towards the broken chamber.  Buffy was half-stumbling half-falling towards the chamber door.  After three attempts where she ended on her knees, only to get right back up, the oxygen deprived Slayer reached the inner door of the chamber air lock system.

            Willow was livid.

            "OPEN THE DOOR!" she screamed loud enough to bring attention from half the level.  "Open it!  Get her out of there!  NOW!"  When the technicians and other aquamarines didn't move fast enough for Willow's satisfaction, she shoved her way past them, and relying on her implant to translate the controls, began operating the air lock system.

            "What are you doing!?  Stop that!" Chad screeched at her.  "Saiyaman!  Stop her!  She's your trainee!"

            Goku turned and looked interestedly at the whale-man, raising an eyebrow.  "Now why should I do that?  She's doing the exact same thing you would be doing, only faster.  I really don't see a problem with getting my student out here any faster, do you?"  Goku's voice took on a slightly dangerous tone and Chad quickly backed down.

            "Damn," Willow cursed.  "She won't survive the recompression process.  I'll have to go in and get her!"  Willow then hit two controls simultaneously and the outer airlock door opened wide.

            "Will!" Xander shouted, chasing after her.  "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

            "I'm going to get my best friend Xander, and don't try and stop me!" the redhead explained as she jumped into the air lock.  She held up a hand and muttered five words and Xander suddenly found himself repelled by some unseen force.  The door closed and the air lock cycle started before he could do anything else.

            Inside, Willow was going through her own helpless thought process.  She was fighting every urge to panic, and when she heard the hiss of the atmosphere being removed, she began to slowly exhale, as she had done earlier with the breath analyzer thing.  Only this time, she actually held some back.  Not a lot, but enough that she was sure she wouldn't pass out dragging Buffy into the airlock chamber.

            Slowly at first, too slowly for Willow's state of mind, the inner door started to open.  Then it was open and there was Buffy, sprawled out before her, looking helpless and weak.  Willow almost cried out, but prevented herself to preserve both air and because it would be pointless.  Willow quickly knelt by Buffy's body and was surprised beyond words that the blonde Slayer was still alive and conscious.

            Having seen all she could stand for the past two days of seeing her best friend dead, Willow quickly began to half drag and pull Slayer inside the air lock chamber.  Once she had gotten the body past the door, Willow collapsed, already feeling faint.  She waited patiently, at first, for the inner door to close and the sequence that would get them out of there to begin, but it didn't start.  The door just hung open where it was left when Willow dragged Buffy in.  Willow began to get worried.

            Out in the observation area, the technicians were almost beside themselves with confusion and dread.  Goku was standing there, tense, with his arms crossed and looking rather ticked.  Xander had seen Willow's actions through the view port and when he saw the doors weren't opening on their own, he raced to the side and tried to start opening it on his own.

            Giles, on the other hand, was merely watching the proceedings with an almost disinterested glare.  The problem, as the technicians were shouting about it, was that the system was locked out, due to some protocol of procedure in the program.  Because Willow had reengaged the air lock cycle, without running the program through the proper set of programs, it remained in 'Error' no matter what the technicians tried to do about it.

            Back inside, Willow had finally figured out that the door would not close on its own, so she was trying to get it shut herself, just by pushing on it.  Unfortunately, it was either on hydraulics, or it weighed _way_ more than she could lift.  She had begun considering trying some of the spells she had learned, figuring that when one exhausted all other contemporary means, that was the time to use magic, Giles beat her to the punch.

            Calmly, and not drawing anyone's attention, Watcher walked up to the crack in the view port Buffy had made, unsheathed Nightblade with a smooth, single motion, and so fast that a streak of light was all that was visible of the blade as it cut fully into the crack, with explosive results.

            After all, what normally happens when you unexpectedly and rapidly expose a pure vacuum to a full atmosphere?  The vacuum, and everything around it…blows up real good.

            After Buffy and Willow had sufficiently recuperated, in other words were able to walk again, Goku immediately rushed them off, with barely a word of comment to Chad and his technicians, since Willow seemed to have said it all.  Buffy was still too out of it to ask her usual questions to Goku, so they all just kind of trudged behind the Saiyan.

            He soon led them to an area that had a large circle outlined on the floor and was clear of any other equipment.  Buffy and Xander saw it and immediately groaned at the same time.

            "Don't worry, this isn't a Gravity Enhancer," Goku eased their fears.  "It's a lift that takes you anywhere inside the top five levels.  Just think of it as an open air elevator."

            As he finished explaining, a floating metallic disc, the same circumference as the circle outlined on the floor, lowered from the ceiling to directly in front of them, until it was seamlessly even with the floor.  Goku stepped onto the arrived platform and gestured for the Slayerettes to do the same.

            Buffy was the first to take a step forward and was quickly followed by the rest.  As soon as they were all settled, and safely away from the edge, the lift smoothly lifted off again, giving the teens and Watcher a good look at how humongous this place actually was.

            By now Buffy was able-bodied enough to start bugging their trainer again.

            "So Goku," Buffy started, staring at the sheer amount of space that was taken up by more things than she had a clue about, "where is it you're taking us next?  To get out lungs autopsied and examined while we sit and watch?"

            Goku smirked at the sarcastic quip and said nothing.

            Buffy immediately had a sinking feeling in her gut, and it had nothing to do with the elevator ride.

            The platform finally stopped, after having gone for over ten minutes through a vertical metal tunnel, with barely any sensational notice that the ride was over.  Buffy wasn't sure what was more surprising; where they ended up, or that it was incredibly smaller than the Level they had just left.

            Goku noticed Buffy's, as well as the other two teenagers', looks of confusion and answered their questions before they could say anything.  "The Second Level is dedicated to two things.  Holding and storaging one of the Compound's backup main frames, and then the reason that we're here.  All that metal and so forth around us as we came up from Third Level was what this floor is mostly made up of.  Computer systems."

            "Wow," Willow mumbled, suddenly bright eyed and beginning to look like a kid in Candy Land.  "But if you have such advanced technology…why have computers bigger than ENIAC and all the Super Computers in the US combined?"

            Goku chuckled.  "Dave?"

            "Yes Saiyaman?" a voice from out of nowhere and everywhere responds to Goku's prompt.

             Goku winced.  "Dave, I've told you at least four hundred and thirty eight times now, well, make it thirty nine, I do not want to be addressed as _Saiyaman_, just Goku, okay?"

            "Yes Saiyaman." The voice answers back.

            Buffy giggled but covered her mouth when the Saiyan glared at her.  Xander and Willow turned around to try and hide their own grins.  Goku sighed deeply and turned to his trainees and addressed them, just as Buffy asked a question.

            "Who was that?" she asked.

            "That was Dave," Goku answered, looking a tiny bit annoyed, but no one could tell if it was because of Buffy, or the voice he called Dave.

            "Dave is one of the Compound's primary AI's.  Dave is in charge of all of the training facilities.  And here is where one of his primary processors is located, though he does have many more backups placed throughout the entire Compound." Goku explained.

            "Really?" Willow squeaks, always the computer geek.  As Xander and Buffy grin at her child like expression, she mumbles again, "That is _so_ neat."

            "All right, enough with the tension and making Willow drool," Buffy interrupted with a grin on her face.  "What's the what with "Level Two"?  Why are we here?"

            Goku grinned.  He turned to a nearby technician, who happened to be human, for the most part as far as the other humans could tell.  That is until they got a good look at his reptilian eyes and snake-like tongue.  "Greg?  If you want to explain it…"

            The dark haired creature shook his head to the negative, and when he spoke, he sounded completely human with no snake lisp that the full humans had expected.  "Are you kidding me?!  I saw what happened down there when you left them with Chad!  Unh uh, bucko.  You are staying right with them until they get up from the terminals.  If you need help, ask Dave, but leave us non-fighters out of it.  Please!"  The technician then turned back to what he had been doing before.

            "Did I do a bad thing?" Willow asked worriedly once the humanoid had gone.

            Goku chuckled again and softly shook his head.  "Not really.  You were just concerned about your friend, and I don't think anyone would blame you for that.  Just understand Willow, some of the things in training are _supposed_ to kill you.  My training days were just as hard as yours.  Maybe a little more lenient on schedule, but trust me, I sympathize."

            "Is this supposed to kill us?" Xander asked what was suddenly on their minds.

            Goku shook his head.  "This is an upgrade to the translator lobes in your brains.  You know, the things you had surgery to get in your brains?"

            As he mentioned their impromptu surgery just the other day, they all unconsciously felt the back of their heads, where the scars were still fading, despite being dying and regenerating several times in the past forty-eight hours.

            "What kind of upgrade?" Buffy asked.

            "Knowledge.  Right now, you've got the hardware with the basic operating software in there," Goku explained, pointing at their heads.  "What this place is, it downloads more software to the devices, which provide it for your brains.  Normally this would be done much later in your training, but yesterday…"

            When Goku trailed off, both Buffy and Xander ducked their heads in shame.  "So what kind of knowledge?  How's it supposed to help us fight better?" Buffy asked.

            "Martial arts, fighting styles, techniques, strategies, anatomical information of the most common aliens, demons, and so forth on the side of Evil as well as some basics for handling yourself around the Compound, like the basic layout and putting a general map in your heads of the entire universe.  Keep in mind that the Compound is in its very own pocket universe, so as big as the Compound is, so is the universe."

            "What kind of martial arts?" Buffy asked.

            Goku shrugged.  "How many species are in or apart of the Compound?" he asked back.

            Buffy shrugged and her face automatically scrunched in confusion.  "How the hell am I supposed to know that?"

            Goku grinned at her.  "Couldn't have said it better myself."

            Buffy glared at the cryptic answer, until she thought about it, and realized that the Compound had access to as many forms, styles, and techniques of martial arts as humans on Earth _had_ martial arts, multiplied by the number of individual races and so forth the Compound has access to.  When Buffy realized the scope of what they were about to have implanted in their heads, she unconsciously let out a low whistle.

            "Wow," Xander muttered as he too realized, followed by Willow letting out a low, "Whoa."  Giles just kind of stood there.

            Suddenly, their revelations were interrupted when Greg came back over and announced, "We're ready for you."

            Goku nodded at the Slayerettes and gestured them forward, ahead of him.  Buffy glared at him, suspicious since the few other times Goku had done that, they ended up getting attacked or something worse.  Goku saw the look and grimaced slightly.  "Please?" he asked, gesturing again.  After a moment's tension, Buffy simply walked where he'd indicated.

            Greg led them through quite a maze of electronic components, computer towers, and shelves of things that only Willow recognized, and piles of things that no human could recognize.  Until finally they walked into an open area where there were a large number of "dentist chair" like chairs arranged along several rows.  What made them different, besides the non-dentist equipment beside the chairs, were the massive amounts of electronic, such as electrodes, scanners, and wires, devices protruding from them.  The head rests also looked kind of funky, with only a thin metal bar held out by to thick metal wires so it could support the top of the head only, leaving the back of the head open to access from below.

            "These are the DTM's," Greg explained before anyone could ask.  "That stands for Data Transfer Matrices, or Matrix in the singular.  Now, to prove that there are no harmful side effects, to any of you, we were hoping for a volunteer, and we have the Clinic on standby to send one of their Field Technicians if anything _did_ go wrong.  Not to mention, you people are immortal.  So not much to worry about, I assure you."

            "What do you mean '_you_ people'?" Willow asked suddenly.  "Isn't everybody here immortal?"

            Greg's eyes shot up in surprise.  "I thought you knew," he muttered in shock.  He cleared his throat at a look from Goku, who looked more impatient than anything else, and explained, "Um, well, only the _fighters_ of the Compound are immortal.  The others, the Technicians, repairers, and so forth…well they, we, _live _here.  You already know that the Compound is it's very own universe, yes?"

            The humans nodded to the affirmative.

            "Well, the Powers, have allowed the Council and the fighters to sometimes "save" entire civilizations, of collapsing worlds, cities, or about to be destroyed civilizations…by bringing them here.  It _is_ an entire universe, so they have room for more than enough people, and…" Greg stopped talking as something behind them began to make a sound that the humans could not truly identify.  It was a cross between an insisting beeping and an unending, but pleasant sounding, droll.  "Excuse me," Greg apologized.

            The computer technician quickly walked back towards a computer tower and activated the monitor there.  The blue screen lit up his face as he read what was displayed there.  Suddenly he smiled, but as he kept reading, the smile turned into a look of surprise.  His good mood seemed unaffected however as he turned back to the group and waved them forward.

            "Well, I must say I am truly honored.  Not to mention impressed that young Goku is the one who is to train all of you.  The specifications for your downloads just arrived.  It would seem that you are getting the…oh, how did you phrase it before Goku?  Ah!  Yes, the _full_ package." Greg announced.

            "Now, Slayer…"

            Buffy interrupted, "My name is Buffy."

            Greg smiled at her and nodded, his reptilian eyes glistening with amusement.  "Yes, Buffy.  Would you please sit in this chair here?  Have no fear; I will explain everything and how this device works.  In fact, if you are anything like the average fighter here, I'd dare say you might actually enjoy this."

            Buffy shrugged and angled herself into the reclined seat and then shuffled herself some to get comfortable.  Once she was settled, Greg was suddenly beside her on the left and nodded, beginning to place some of the electrodes on specific places over Buffy's skin.  Once everything was placed and attached, things such as the heart monitor, Greg nodded and then pointed at Buffy's head.  "Thank you, now I just need you to release your _trangl_ and we can begin."

            Buffy frowned and jerked her head upward.  "My _what?!!_" she screeched in outrage.

            Goku sighed and grinned at Greg's look of confusion.  He quickly answered the technician's confusion in Gnarn, "It's only been about two days since they all received their translators, and obviously they haven't finished calibrating to their new hosts yet.  Don't worry.  Just get her set up.  And I'll join you in the Booth after we get them all set up, all right? "

            Greg just nodded and turned to retrieve something off the back of the chair.  Goku turned to Buffy and explained what Greg had said.  "Greg just asked you to let down your hair Buffy.  The translators in your brain only have the basic set of languages stored in them right now, meaning the most commonly used in the Compound.  Another part of this download is that it will enhance your language comprehension and will even activate the auto-translating feature."

            "Auto-translating feature?" Buffy repeated as she removed her hair from the ponytail she'd put it in that morning.  The others were nodding, understanding now why the gibberish Goku had spoken to Greg in, hadn't been translated for them.

            Goku shrugged.  "It means rather than just waiting for a full language to be put into your translator directly, you can just listen to the sounds and way the language is spoken and after a few moments, you'll be able to understand it, and even speak it like a native.  Buffy put your head back."

            Buffy frowned at the order, but complied and saw Greg pull around and show her the device he had retrieved from the back of the chair.  It looked like "high-tech" hair barrette with a wire coming out the back, or an enlarged, curved microchip.  It was about four to five inches from top to bottom, and was softly curved, as though meant to fit over something rounded.

            "This is the connector," Greg explained.  "This will attach to the back of your head, directly over where the Translator synapse was placed.  Do not worry, there will be no penetration and you will hardly feel a thing from its presence."

            "How does it work?" Willow asked, stepping forward.

            Greg shrugged.  "Through a process of neuro-synaptic and electromagnetic signal emission through semi-conductive areas.  I would be happy to fully explain the physics and science behind it, but as you are on a schedule, and these machines require precise control, it must wait until a later date I'm afraid."

            Willow nodded, understanding, and anxious to speak with the technician after it was over.  Seeing the Sage's permission, Greg then knelt down and proceeded to fish through Buffy's cascading gold locks until he found the healing scar at the back of her skull, and then with a skill that made it look simple, placed the connector to her head and stood back up.

            He walked back over to the tower he had been at before and began manipulating some things on the screen.  Willow was about to ask what he was doing when he answered before she could speak.  "Since this is mostly a demonstration to show you this is perfectly safe, we'll start by downloading only a single fighting technique, fully, into your brain.  I'm sure you'll enjoy this Buffy."

            He manipulated a couple more things and then turned back to the group.  "Oh, Goku, if you will?"  Goku nodded and stepped forward.  "Oh yeah!  I forgot about that part."

            "Why does he keep saying I'll enjoy this?" Buffy asked before Goku reached her.

            The Saiyan shrugged and faster than Buffy could react, he pulled out and strapped down the hidden clamps in the seat around Buffy's feet, legs, wrists, and arms.  Buffy went bug eyed and tried to forcefully remove the clamps, but even with her gravity-enhanced Slayer strength, they wouldn't budge.  The moment that the clamps were secure, the seat suddenly came to life and elevated slightly so that Buffy felt like she was floating on a cloud maybe.  If she weren't strapped to it that is.

            "HEY!  What do you think you're doing?!" Buffy shouted.  Giles sneered and reached his hand up to draw Nightblade, while Willow's eyes started to turn solid black and Xander reached for his own sword.

            Goku turned to the three humans and gave them a look that said, "As if!"  They all knew that with their current strength, and despite their training so far, Goku could still easily beat them all.  He turned back to Buffy, "Stay calm Buffy.  This is just to keep you from hurting yourself."

            "Hurt myself?  _Hurt myself!?_  Why would I want to hurt myself?" Buffy began to panic, her heart rate beginning to show its rise on the monitor.

            "You'll see," Goku said with a roguish grin and nodded at Greg.

            Greg nodded back and pressed the on-screen button labeled "LOAD", which turned red at the touch and three seconds later…

            Buffy's next protest never made it to her throat as she felt a sudden tingle at the top of her neck, which soon turned into…something more.  Just as suddenly as the tingling started, Buffy's eyes shot closed, her mouth opened in a silent scream and her body arched, despite being restrained somewhat.  But it was not pain Buffy was feeling.  Nor was it pleasure, at least not purposeful pleasure.

            The moment that her eyes closed, Buffy saw thousands of images suddenly cascading through her mind, all in a billion or more directions and all at once.  There was no pain, and nothing that was specific enough to be called pleasure, but…  It was more like when she was training.  In fact it was exactly like training.  She felt as though she were doing years worth of training in a few seconds, and succeeding at every point.  It made her feel good, and because it was just so intense, Buffy felt _really_ good.  So good in fact…

            Buffy suddenly dropped back with a heavy thud into the seat, her breath gasping in and out of her lungs.  Her eyes snapped open as she suddenly realized what had happened.  And then she remembered.  She remembered _everything_.

            If her hands hadn't been tied down, they would be clutching her chest, trying to keep her racing heart from bursting out of it.  Instead, she just cursed.  "Holy shit!" she gasped.

            Greg smiled from the computer tower.  "I told you she'd like it," he said smugly.

            Willow was by Buffy's right side in an instant.  "Buffy, are you all right?  What happened?" she asked, wanting to know if her friend was all right.

            Buffy just started nodding.  "Uh…yeah, I'm," suddenly the Slayer started giggling, "…I'm fine, Willow," she managed, continuing to giggle.  After a moment or two to settle herself, Buffy turned to Giles and grinned.  "I know Kung Fu," she said with certainty of fact.

            Giles' eyebrow arched some and he asked her for clarification, "Buffy, I know that we studied some of the basics of Kung Fu to help you in your training but…"

            "No Giles," Buffy interrupted, sounding deadly certain, "I mean I _know_ Kung Fu!  I know all of it.  Every move, every attack, every strength necessary, and even the spiritual stuff that you were trying to teach me.  I mean, I _know_ it."

            She turned to her two best friends, "You guys have got to try it.  It…it's so intense there's no way to describe it.  Not to mention…"  Suddenly Buffy began to blush and smiled secretively, but would say no more.  However, a little eye communication with Willow, and the red Sage understood with wide-eye understanding what the gold Slayer meant.

            "Oh!" Willow squeaked, getting back to her feet.

            "Want some more?" Greg asked, on Buffy's left side now.

            Buffy turned sharply, almost eagerly, at his approach.  Her response was also somewhat heightened over normal, coming from the girl.  "Hell YEAH!!  Hell yeah!" she shouted.

            Xander traded looks between Willow, the seated Buffy, and Goku.  After less than a minute, he stepped forward and announced, "All right, I'm sold.  Hook me up Greg!"  With varying degrees, the others of the group mimicked Xander and Buffy's sentiments and within three minutes, the rest of the team was "hooked up" as Xander had put it.

            Greg stood where all of the humans could see him.  "Now, for monitoring all of you at the same time, I'll have to go to the Control Booth, but don't worry.  And we won't be doing it one at a time, because that would take _way_ too long.  Instead we'll download it all at once, which should take about two to three hours, depending on the absorption rate of your brains."

            "Absorption rate?" Willow repeated.

            Greg nodded.  "Mosts' brains can only accept so much input at once and still have any retaining factor to the data.  Such as reading a book or watching a movie.  The more you read it, or watch it, the more you retain about that.  That's because your brains absorbed the data more easily with repetition.  What we do here is try to take out all of that repetition and individual training.  For instance, there are some people, who can read a book or see an image once and can remember it with vivid detail for the rest of their lives.  That's called Full Absorption.  The rate differs between people and individuals and therefore the two to three hour estimate is the best average, with the program we'll be putting into your heads today."

            "Something I've gotta know," Xander interrupted right before Greg would have walked away.

            "Yes?" the snake-eyed technician asked.

            "You couldn't like…mind control us with these things could you?  I mean, like implant subliminal commands that we'll have to obey at a crucial point…like throw the tournament by killing ourselves or one of our teammates?" Xander asked with full and lethal biting sarcasm.

            Greg shook his head, looking confident, and also somewhat approving, as though he had expected the comment.  "No, that's impossible.  At least for this machine.  It has to do with the Translator synapse itself.  There's a filtering device in it that prevents electronic mind control and even disables subliminal cues the brain has absorbed, or at least points them out to you.  Also, the way that it works prevents it from being a mind control device itself.  All the synapse does is transfers the data embedded in its DNA and any extra data transferred to it, to all the other neurons and synapses in your brain.  So you actually _know_ the data as though your brain had put it there yourself.  Have no fears, there is nothing to worry about _that_." Greg chuckled and then turned to go to the Control Booth.

            Once they were alone, Buffy berated Xander with no mercy.  "Mind control Xander?" she asked credulously.  "Xander, in case you've forgotten, these people are trying to help us.  They wouldn't do something like that."

            "Oh hoh!  Like it hasn't been done before Buff?" Xander defended himself.  "The only thing "these people", with the exception of individuals like Goku, care about is winning the Tournament the Powers recruited us for.  Chances are pretty high that if we don't stick with the flow or aren't making enough progress, they'll end up reprogramming us into a more cooperative mood!"

            "They wouldn't do that Xander," Willow insisted.  "Amana wouldn't do that…"

            Xander sighed.  "I'm not saying it's actively done, heck, I could be wrong and it _isn't_ done, but admit it Will, the tension around here?  It _could_ be done.  Besides, Goku is the one training us, so I say we trust him.  He's been honest so far and remember the first day of training?  That demonstration of what he says we'll be able to do?  Imagine the looks on the vamps faces back home when we're doin' that stuff on them."

            Four very well intentioned and evil grins formed on the faces of the Team as they contemplated that image.  A few seconds' later speakers in their chairs crackled and Greg's voice soon came out of them.

            "We'll be beginning in a few moments," his voice came.  "Until then, just try and relax.  Once we begin, you'll enter what some of the fighters have called a "Zen-state" which is something alike to being asleep, but with heavy REM and no other stages of sleep for the next few hours.  To you, you shouldn't experience anything outside of watching the programs' download into your mind and maybe a dream state or two, but that is a rare thing."

            Ten seconds later, "Okay, we're starting up the primary program now.  Pleasant dreams."

            Three seconds after that, four bodies arched in their seats as the unexpected intensity drove them all to immediate ecstasy.  After ten seconds, their body's adjusted to the rush of endorphins and other brain stimulating chemicals and quietly settled back into the reclined chairs.  Their eyes were in constant and extremely rapid movement, their breathing regular, while the monitors next to each station showed how rapidly their systems were being taxed.  With the exception of Watcher and Sage however, they showed to be having a healthily strenuous workout.  Watcher and Sage's brain activity, however, suggested that they were not as fast at absorbing the program as the other two were.

            "How are they?" Goku asked the instant he was inside the control room, which looked exactly like an Air Traffic Control Center, minus the windows, and add a whole lot more computer junk.

            "They're _fine_," Greg assured the Trainer, _again_.  "Out of all the things that this place does to its Fighters, I assure you," Greg turned from his console and glared harshly at the 1/8th Saiyan, "_this_ is the safest.  And I promised them that I would pull them all out if even one of them showed any signs of danger or abnormality.  So stop being a worry washin'."

            Goku took a deep breath and slowly nodded and took the seat that had been prepared for him, since his stature was considerably larger than all of the others that frequented the control room.  "The term, typically, is _worry wart_," Goku corrected as he sat down.

            "Whatever," Greg replied as he concentrated on the consoles and bringing up the data on Buffy and her team's downloads.  Four screens suddenly lit up, each showing the same statistics, but varied because each was for one member of Buffy's team.  From first glance, it was just an outline diagram of the humans, male-looking figures for Watcher and Warrior X, and female for Slayer and Sage.  Next to the outlines were about seven to nine rainbow filled lines, like a bar graph, with percentages underneath the lead of the lines.  At the moment, all of the lines on all of the screens were more or less even and very close to the start of the lines.  That began to change over time, however, as the download progressed more and more and even started to differ screen to screen.

            "Hmm, that's interesting," Greg mumbled, looking at the screens, before typing something out in a Global.

            "What?  What's interesting?" Goku asked worriedly.

            "Oh?  Nothing at the moment.  Nothing serious I mean!" Greg corrected.  "It's just that Slayer's absorption rate seems to have a rather high tolerance.  She's assimilating the data at a somewhat faster pace than the others are."

            "Got any hypothesis as to why that might be?" Goku asked.

            Greg shook his head.  "Not yet.  But it's perfectly fine.  None of them are in any danger.  Don't worry Goku, I'll call if anything stranger happens."  Just then, there was a sudden beeping.

            As the two turned at the sound, they stared in absolute amazement as the bottom indicator, entirely in gray, on Slayer's screen started to move very quickly to the end of the screen, while all of the others were still at less than an inch or smaller.

            "What in the name of the Powers…!?!!" Greg exclaimed as he began reading the data.  "By the Makers!  Slayer's fighting absorption rate is over two milli-quads!  It might even be _four_ milli-quads!"

            Goku got up and stood behind Greg, staring in amazement at the screens.  "Per second…or per minute?" he asked.

            Greg froze.  And then, very slowly, he turned to look up at the Saiyan/human descendant.  "Three point five seven milli-quads…per _milli_second!" he whispered hoarsely.  Goku's eyes went wide and his jaw dropped as the implication of that statistic worked its way through his brain.  "Call the Council.  Then attach her to whatever extra utilities you can get access to.  I have to tell them about this." Goku ordered as he returned to the chair and rotated it to look at a bigger screen than any other in the room.

            As soon as the Saiyan did so, the screen suddenly flickered to life.  On it was an image of a _much_ larger room.  Gray, the primary color of the entire place it seemed at times, pictured the domed wall and the table at which sat nine beings of quite numerous backgrounds.  Not a one of them was anything close to humanoid however.

            _"Yes Goku, what is it we can do for you this afternoon.  Are your new pupils giving you any _more_ trouble?"_ the large bluish-hued creature at the center of the table asked him with a bit of sarcasm in it's tone.  Not that it spoke in sound waves.

            "Not so much trouble as surprise.  The latest of the Powers' Chosen has a rather eclectic grouping." Goku answered disarmingly and calmly.  "In particular with the leader.  I've read the Mages' reports on the witch of my team, but I didn't expect it to be repeated with the leader."

            That caused a slight stirring with the Council, the ruling body of the Compound.  (Basically, the _government_.)

            After the group of aliens had settled down, the center blue-hued one, which was by closest comparison, a cross between a coral reef, a giant spider, and a squid-like scorpion, who was obvious the leader of the Council, spoke above the others and asked, _"What do you mean?  Explain yourself _Saiyaman_!"_

            Goku them smirked dangerously at the Council, reminding them, _briefly_, that while they might be the ones in charge, they were not warriors and that he, out of everyone here, was more than capable of destroying them all with just one blast.  "The leader, _Slayer_, is currently receiving her upload of techniques, along with the other members of her team.   Her absorption rate is estimate to be higher than 4 milli-quads per _milli_second.  Now…the witch, Willow is her name, was surprising.  For one so young to be so gifted in learning and using magic.  But for a girl like this, even chosen by the Powers, and empowered by the spirit of her universe to be the Slayer…  There's something you guys aren't telling me, _Cephiron_.  And I want to know what it is.  Now."

            The steady, yet at the same time foreboding, way that Goku made his demand caused the Council to flit worried glanced across at one another for a brief moment.  Finally, the leader, Cephiron, gave an affirmative motion, nothing a human could recognize without seeing, and answered the 1/8th Saiyan's challenge.

            _"There is not much that we _do_ know.  Only what the Powers revealed to us about this particular girl.  She, apparently, is destined to be the strongest out of _all_ of her counterparts and universal and dimensional doubles.  Of the little we have delved…we have only just begun to grasp the concept of how powerful that may be, as there are already several versions of Buffy Summers that are even more powerful than our current Champion."_

_            "In conclusion, the only thing to add, is that her entire destiny has been centered on her participation in the _Tournament_.  We have not yet begun to hypothesize what _that_ could mean.  But if her absorption rate is as high as four milli-quads…"_

            "So," Goku interrupted, "then do I have permission to use full resources in training this group?"

            There was no way for the members of the Council to miss the underlining emphasis in what Goku was asking.  There was also no other way for them to answer his question.

            Inside the "Upload Area", it was surprisingly much busier since Goku had ended his call and started making others.  There were over a dozen technicians, each humanoid but none human enough to be called such, and no two alike.  They were going over the unconscious forms of the team in training, but in particular were going over the computer towers next to them.  Attaching wires to and from them to additional portable computer hubs they had brought in with them.

            More and more of the portable computer hubs were brought in, but rather than being attached to the primary computer towers, were attached to the already connected hubs.  Greg was the one orchestrating it all, a global in his hand as he checked off a list on it with the other.  Most of the noise came from the shouting though, rather than the low, yet ever-building, hum of the computer cores in the background.

            "Right!  Yes, there!  Connect those two Seamus!  No!  No, Jean, you connect it to the secondary cores!  Yes, that's right!  Now finish up there so Neon can bring in the Fifth core from Level 1!" Greg was shouting orders at the crews around him.

            The secondary computer cores were actually data nodes.  Each one was filled with over 100 Giga-quads of information.  Information of fighting techniques to be specific.  Each node held the full listing of every technique, move, counter, and philosophy and history of every martial art form of a single species.  Humans, for example, have over 300 individual martial art forms.  Other species have been known to have even more.  And at the moment, each of over twenty nodes were being set up to be downloaded into the four humans.

            And more was being requisitioned.  Over 10,000 species were a part of the Compound, in one way or another, and true not all was capable of the martial arts capable, or at least easily capable of the humanoid body, but over 5,000 were.  So when it was discovered that the human brain could actually **_fully_** retain all of this data, and it only required the consciousness to access it that any hope of downloading every martial art form in quite nearly all of existence into one single warrior became possible.  Combined with the Universal Translator adding to the recall factor, there was very little doubt of success in the procedure.

            The only problems came in the downloading process itself.  Humans without the strength of mind to absorb all of the data…sometimes did not turn out so well.  Yet never in the entire history of this technology did _any_ human have the capability of downloading the information so fast.  Certain other species could certainly do it faster, but they often had less retention ability.  To _keep_ the data in their brains.

            So the excitement over Buffy's results was certainly understandable, and even if her teammates fell more into the "average" category for the other humans that had taken this procedure, it was worth all 5000 data cores to see the results.

            Unfortunately, only about 2,550 could be brought immediately, with the others coming in later in the day.  So the technicians made due.

            Meanwhile, Buffy and the others dreamed…

            There was fighting.  There was blood, guts, the whole deal.  There was no screaming, however.  Grunting, gasping, pain-induced sounds, yes, but no screaming.  It was dark, no light at all to see what was around her.  She was nothing but the movement, nothing but the punch, the kick…the kill.

            Buffy didn't care that it had not always been this way, she did not care that she was fighting and killing things that she couldn't even begin to see, let alone tell which was and wasn't human or demon.  She was the Slayer, pure and simple.  They attacked her, she killed them.

            Yet Buffy was learning at the same time.  Each opponent, though she couldn't tell who, what, or where, came at her with a different style of fighting.  Which forced her to adapt just to survive their blows.

            Sometimes she was facing four to six opponents, other times not even one, and still others more than she could possibly hope to count.  But she learned.  In the darkness, in the confusion of it all, she learned each technique, each style, each art and used it to defeat the one that had "taught" it to her.  It became really bad when she was fighting over a dozen fighters all at once, using the technique of each against each individual, while blocking in the style and form of the others attacking her.

            Being a dream plane, anything is possible, and Buffy never questioned that she never once got hit, despite the overwhelming odds.  She just kept fighting, and learning.  At the same time that she learned the fighting, she also learned the history, from the spirits of those that she had already killed.

            The spirits just seemed to rise up out of the dead bodies and then began talking about the history, the origin, and everything there was to know or was associated with their specific art form.  At first it was only a couple voices that was a pleasant background while Buffy continued to fight and kill.  And then, as the lesson count rose, the voices became more than just a background, they became the only sound capable of drowning out the fighting.  Yet Buffy heard it all.  She memorized what each spirit said, despite the confusion of fighting and all the others speaking at the same time.  It was the least she could do however, to remember and honor those that she had slain.

            And the fighting went on…

            Xander was running.  He at least had some illumination, yet when there was nothing but blackness around you, illumination doesn't do you all that good.  He felt like he was being hunted…by what, he could not yet comprehend, but his prey instincts were screaming at him to keep running.

            Just then, he heard a sound that still filled his dreams with terror each time he heard it and froze him where he was.  A laughing sounded barks, followed by a hungry and evil growl.  Xander slowly, _very_ slowly turned around.

            Sure enough, hunched there, growling, it's drool dripping to the black floor to create a small pool of saliva, was the _hyena_.  Its spotted and raised fur was shaking with pent-up energy as it continued to stare Xander down, trying to make him realize _he_ was the prey.

            Which is when Xander had a revelation.  It had happened a couple days ago, when he and Buffy had fought…er, sparred.  After the incident with the Zookeeper, and getting the Hyena spirit out of him, Xander had done his best to do what he told his friends had happened to him, to forget the entire thing.  The best he could do was suppress what had happened to him a couple days after the incident.

            It was in only a couple papers, and pushed to a section of such non-importance that nobody would ever normally read it unless they were looking for it and knew where to look.  A couple animals had escaped from the zoo, one of which was a rare species of hyena from Africa.  Xander found out the hard way.

            He was walking home after a rather late patrol with Buffy that night, and he heard a growling, tinged with a sort of evil-sounding laughter following him from the bushes.  Thinking it a vampire, he readied a stake that he had made it custom to always keep with him, if not at all times then _definitely_ when he was on patrol with Buffy.

            Then a strange thing happened.  He heard someone call his name.  _"Xannnnnn-derrrrr!"_ it was part growled, part slurred, but mostly drawn out in almost a teasing manor.

            Xander froze, at first because if a vampire knew his name, then they knew where he lived and if they knew that then they knew about Buffy and Willow too!  Then a faint tinge of memory came to the surface.  Something about what Giles had said a couple days ago, about how the hyenas of the Masai would listen all day, and then at night call out a person they had learned the name of into the darkness…where they would be killed.

            Xander took a few more steps…before the growl repeated itself, calling him by name.

            Taking many deep breaths, and a really big gulp, Xander slowly, _very_ slowly turned around.  And as in the dream, there was the hyena, hunched and tensed to attack.

            The human mind is capable of some pretty amazing things, most of them, however boil down to three things; memory, will, and instinct.  In the few seconds that Xander and the escaped hyena stared at each other on the street, instinct was most of what was controlling Xander at this point.  Fear coming off him in waves, he made to turn around and start running as fast as he could, knowing it wouldn't be enough and the hyena would catch him, kill him, and eat him…all before he'd seen Buffy naked! Was his last thought.

            The hyena, however, launched itself at the human before Xander could fully turn around.  The motion triggered more instincts, particularly the instincts to stay alive, and in turned triggered Xander's fight/flight response.  He brought up the stake, clutched tightly in his hand, a wild gleam entering his eyes as he prepared to fight, his every instinct focused on survival and willing to do whatever it took to do so.

            It all happened so fast that Xander never knew what hit him.  The hyena tackled Xander, its fangs going straight for his throat, but they never quite reached as every adrenaline surged muscle in Xander struck out at the exact right moment, plunging the stake into the hyena's chest.

            Unfortunately, living creatures, even insane mystically possessed ones, don't turn to dust like vampires do when they're impaled with a wooden stake, so Xander was still tackled by the hyena, both of them falling back to the ground.  Xander immediately scrambled away, afraid that the hyena may still attack, but instead it lay there for a moment, making a whimpering sound that _still_ sounded like evil laughter.  Xander, despite his knowledge to never approach a wounded animal, stepped closer, his curiosity overwhelming his instinctual judgement.

            As he looked closer, Xander seemed to catch the hyena's yellow eyes, and then something that Xander had completely forgotten about to this day, the hyena's eye flashed brighter, as though glowing from some inner light, for just a moment, and then a moment later, the hyena died.

            The next twenty-four hours, which thankfully was a Saturday, were still very fuzzy to Xander, even in this dream state where these memories were uncovered.  But somehow, the hyena spirit had _re-_infected him, and within a day, he had not only suppressed them, but he had forced the hyena into a cage in his mind, keeping it safe from the others, and him safe from it.  Until he had tapped into its power, and released the hyena into his mind once more.

            Now it wanted to turn the tables and put _him_ in the cage.  Xander could tell.  It was almost as if the two, he and the hyena, were a part of each other now, only neither wanted the other here.  Before, during the ritual at the zoo with the others of the "pack" the hyena had immediately taken control, forcing Xanders personality to the back of his mind with magic.  What had happened when he was attacked by the hyena, was to not only repeat the ritual, but he killed the source of the spirit, forcing the spirit to join with his in order to survive.  Only…it didn't have the magic necessary to take control from Xander, only it's instincts, powers, and spirit.  Xander had more power than it had, and that was why it had been caged so easily.  Not that it was that easy.

            But now, it had healed its wounds from within Xander's mind, and now that it was released, it was strong enough to fight him for control.  A fight that Xander didn't want to lose, and the hyena had no intention of losing…

            Giles had things incredibly simple, even if he was learning at the average human rate.  He, and the Nightblade perched on the wall, was in a dojo of sorts, and dressed in a simple beige karate gi.  There was a door across from the fighting mat, which Giles sat in front of, across from the door.  One by one, a single fighter would enter through the door, and then begin instructing Giles about the form, style, technique, etc of the art that they taught.  At first, it was only human teachers, but as the instructors kept coming, aliens, some demons, and other creatures began teaching Giles.  After they had finished instructing them, but before the next one would come, Giles would then fight and defeat them in the martial arts form they had just taught him.  Just like that.

            Nightblade gleamed in amusement at the spectacle, but often added pointers, where Giles could improve a style and learn some things quicker than others, or counterpoint something that the style left open.

            Nightblade also sighed as he realized that the "line" of teachers for Giles was continuing to grow, and at an alarming rate.

            _'It's going to be a while,' _it thought to itself as Giles continued steadily…

            Back in the Control room, Goku was sitting in the large chair while multiple technicians raced around the small room like worker ants on a caffeine high.  Displayed on a monitor before the 1/8th Saiyan, and was the REM and brainwave patterns of his latest pupils.

            He was paying the greatest attention to Buffy's readouts, yet was also keeping an avid eye on the others.  When the download had first started, all four of them were more or less even on absorption rate and everything else.  Then…Buffy had somehow pulled ahead, while her physical status reported completely normal.

            No one was bothered that Giles' readouts showed more brain activity than even Buffy, though his absorption rate was the exact average for humans that had undergone this procedure before.  Goku also noticed, as the Technicians did as well, they made sure to steer clear of the Blade warrior, that Nightblade was appearing to be rather active, surrounding portions of Giles' bodies at certain times with a faint, yet visible, blue glow.

            Buffy, though her brain wasn't as electrically active as Giles', was certainly in overdrive.  The technicians working on it had calculated her absorption rate at '20 AFs per second'.  Goku's own was, at best, '3 AFs per second'.  The girl was almost a machine, she was processing the data being downloaded into her so fast.  Goku almost choked it up to her being the Slayer…but he knew the legend of the Slayers as well as any Watcher on any number of worlds.  Once a Slayer dies, the spirit that teaches them to fight, and _makes_ them the Slayer, moves on to the next candidate.  Buffy _died_.  So, technically, while a) still having her powers, b) being still alive, and c) having a destiny to save the world and all that, she is no longer the Slayer, and that means that the spirit that _teaches_ the Slayer how to fight was no longer with Buffy, and it was not a reasonable excuse for Buffy's unusual talent for this anymore.

            So what was it about _Buffy_, or rather _this_ Buffy that made her so good at learning fighting techniques?

            Goku took a deep sigh, steepling his fingers before his face as he considered the problem he faced.  The _Council_ wanted an answer to this.  Probably hoping they could mass-produce it, like with the Martial Arts that were being 'uploaded' into his students.  He had no answer though.  Maybe it was just her mind.  That _this_ Buffy, contrary to the profiles he had read on a number of this girl's doubles the Compound knew of, though had no contact with, actually _liked_ being the Slayer.  Goku would have to ask her about that later.

            He looked down at Xander, who was actually absorbing almost as fast as Buffy, (at 10 AFs per second), was.  His physical readout however showed that his body was undergoing just as much strain as his mind.  His adrenaline levels were starting to climb rather high, as were numerous other neuro-chemicals.  Nothing was in the danger zone yet, thankfully, but just to be safe, Goku had ordered an emergency medical team on standby inside the Upload Area.  In fact, if Goku didn't know any better, judging from what exactly he was seeing, Xander's mind was adapting his body to whatever he was going through in his dream state.

            That was another thing that Goku and the Technicians had noticed.  All _four_ of them were actively dreaming.  Sometimes, humanoids would occasionally dream during the upload process, after all, sometimes one got sleepy just lying there having information being uploaded into their brains.  This was different however.  Even Willow, who was absorbing at more a sub-par rate than even Giles was, her brainwaves were extremely active, even though her REM status was confirmed by all points that mattered.

            It was an enigma in the worst way.  One that couldn't be solved until _after_ it was gone…

            Xander wasn't sure what to believe, that he was under attack in _a dream_, or who his fighting partner was.  Not Buffy, that's for sure, not even some famous Kung Fu action star.  The hyena.  Yep, heard right, the hyena.

            A couple minutes ago, if you could call the dream time actual time, the two were staring each other down, the hyena confident of victory, and Xander scared almost out of his mind, but resolved to not let the hyena win, at any costs.  And just before they were certain the other would attack, they noticed that they were no longer alone in the darkness.  They were in fact surrounded on all sides by faceless opponents.  Voices could also be heard, but they were meaningless to the pair as they began to realize what they faced.

            _'They mean to destroy us,'_ the hyena, Xander realized, spoke without moving its jaw.

            "Ya think!" Xander sarcastically remarked.

            _'I didn't chose you as a host either ya know!'_ the hyena growled back.  Xander noticed that it was using an imitation of his voice.  He blinked in surprise as he remembered, it _was_ his voice, during the time the spirit had fully possessed him.  Its sarcasm was more biting, and its every syllable seemed to be a growl or tinged with a confidence and anger so great it was like evil.  But Xander, who knew about masks better than anyone in Sunnydale, knew better.  The hyena may act tough and confident, and may even pretend to be evil, but in the end, it's just another predator, and one that could be as scared as any prey when without its pack.

            "You know…" Xander began, as a plan began to form in his mind, "since these guys want to destroy the both of us, and neither of us favors that prospect, and seeing as how they also outnumber us…" Xander trailed off until he got a glare from the animal, "…how about we…team up…temporarily, just until we kill, or at least get rid of all of'em?"

            _'What do I get out of it?'_ the hyena asked after some thought as the numbers against them began to build up.

            "Look, we're outnumbered as it is, and the odds aren't improving.  If we're going to survive this we've got to work together or we're _both_ going to die…or get erased…or _something bad_!  All right!!" Xander shouted.

            _'What do I get out of it?'_ the hyena repeated more sharply, and this time with an audible bark.

            Xander sighed and deflated some.  "Look, there is no way in hell that I'm letting you loose to hurt my friends again.  They're closer than family…hell, they _are_ my family!  But…considering that I unleashed you myself just to match Buffy in training…I won't put you back in any cage." Xander finally relented.

            The hyena seemed to regard the young warrior for some moments before finally answering, _'The pack that was first created by the zookeeper's spell, was destroyed the moment the power was placed into him, and I ate him to retrieve my power from him.  You then defeated me in single combat, and won the right to my power.  Your friends…your family…they are my Pack now…they are my family as well.  I swear I will not hurt them.  And you will keep to your oath?'_

            Xander stared with a new and complete respect at the hyena.  He nodded, "Yeah.  Together.  Lets do this!"  The hyena grinned at him and let loose a wild laughing bark that signaled the beginning of the battle.  Together, the two of them faced each opponent that came at them.  Without realizing it, the two moved in tandem, working together to take down each fighter against them, moving as one.

            They also learned the same way Slayer was learning, the information of the arts, hidden in the background being subconsciously and subliminally absorbed in the dream state, and they learned and adapted to each fighting technique, even if they didn't use the same style to defeat the fighter, they still learned how to block, defeat, and utilize it.

            It wasn't until the noise was deafening and the blackness was filled more with waiting opponents than empty space that the two realized they needed a better edge than working together.  "Any ideas?" Xander shouted as he knocked out another opponent, only to have another immediately take its place, after they had realized their problem.

            The hyena was silent for a moment before he finally answered Xander's question, with a question of its own.  _'How much do you trust me?'_

            Xander actually laughed at that.  Then he answered seriously, "Well…surprisingly I actually trust you at all, you won me some points by admitting that you wouldn't hurt my friends, but we do kinda have a past together.  So I guess I'd have to say…I trust you, let's just say that's enough for right now."

            The hyena nodded soberly just before ripping the throat out of another opponent.  _'There is something, that I as a spirit, know about that might be able to help us in this battle, and potentially many more.  As a spirit, an _Earth spirit_ mind you, we can inhabit and empower humans with our gifts, and other abilities.  The spell of the zookeeper made you a match for the Slayer, correct?'_

            "Yeah, grunt so what?" Xander grunted.

            _'There is…another way that grants even _more_ power to you.  And me as well, sort of.  We would merge our spirits.  We would become one, literally as well as figuratively.  Right now, the best you could hope for is to match strength and speed of a newbie vamp.  But if we merged…'_ the hyena trailed off, leaving Xander to imagine the consequences.

            "Goku?" Xander asked suddenly, with an interested tone.

            Knowing what he was asking, the hyena laughed again, genuinely this time.  _'Maybe…maybe more.  It would mostly depend on you.  I can tell that he has merged with a spirit of his own, not to mention was more than human from birth.  But for this fight…we would be unstoppable.  And it would make us stronger, faster, and far more powerful in the coming days.'_

            "What are the side effects?" Xander asked.  When the hyena was silent for longer than he expected, Xander snorted, a sort of "I told you so."

            _'I don't fully know.'_ The hyena admitted finally.  _'Your friends would not be in danger, they are our pack, and we do not hurt the pack.'_

            "What about dominance issues.  Buffy's team leader, and I'm not in the slightest inclined to try and take it away from her." Xander pointed out.

            _'Considering that she's beat you the last few times we've faced her, and she _is_ the Slayer, I don't think Buffy's dominance will be questioned.  Her place as a mate however…'_ the hyena trailed off again, this time with a grin of amusement on his face.

            Xander too grinned.  "All right, I can't keep this up forever, what do we do?" he asked after a couple more minutes into the fighting.

            _'I do all the work.  You just don't fight me.'_ The hyena growled before it suddenly began to glow a powerful amber color.

            "What?!" Xander shouted right before the hyena leapt at him, and then _into_ him!

            Xander felt the change before he knew it was happening, and there were moments of pain, but they left quickly, and a transformed Xander was standing there on the dreamscape.  He was as tall as the human, but his muscles had exponentially grown.  His hair was longer also, with traces of the hyena spots and the same spiky style to it.  His eyes were the same color as the hyena's, except the whites were still there, and he was wearing his Compound uniform, minus the jacket.  He also casually noticed, as he used them to instantly and casually rip out the heart of a nearby opponent, that his hands had transformed into claws.  He smiled, feeling the sharpness to his teeth and let out a laughing bark/growl, just before he leapt into the fray with the faceless opponents.

            It was the next day, and the uploads were just now being completed.  It would still be another two hours before Sage was even caught up with the others, but the fact that she had managed to keep up with the process at all was pretty impressive, although not by much shadowed against the retaining rates of Slayer and Warrior X.  Goku stared through the observation window appreciating what this had done to his students.  Both Willow and Xander seemed to have been physically changed by the knowledge absorbed into their brains, Xander the most by making him almost, strength and muscle-wise, the equal of Buffy.  Willow on the other hand seemed to have hyper-metabolized her body to remove a good portion of her fat stores and transferred the energy to her muscle tone.  Not the same as Xander's, but still made her look less like the weakling she had been.

            Goku was just reading the report from the Technicians.  Leaving out the techno-gobble-goop, it basically said what was clear to common sense.  Slayer and Warrior X had completed the full uploads approximately an hour ago and Watcher was about 90% complete already.  All 5000 data cores had been successfully uploaded into the two humans' brains, each core holding the complete martial arts information of a single species/race, meaning that the fighting techniques and styles of over 5000 races was swimming around their heads.

            Xander's physical makeup had been changed in more than just muscular range.  He also carried a new DNA quotient that granted him some enhancements to his senses, his immune system, and his overall metabolism, both healing, aging, and working off energy.  It took a bit of work, but Goku finally got the answer when he received the data stream from the universal probe sent to the team's home universe.

            A Universal Probe was what the Compound used to gather information about the universes they became connected to.  The probe was little more than a small satellite, barely even big enough to be recognizable by sight alone, and just floated around the space of the universe it was in, picking up and gathering radio signals, among other energy patterns, and when directed to, scanning the actual space/time superstring of a planet or stellar body.  Which then allowed the Compound to learn far more about the culture and history of one of their fighters far faster than researching what the government's history books say.

            Just under a year ago, Xander was exposed to animal spirit possession.  By a hyena.  _'Which explains the laughing…'_ Goku thought as he put the Global away for now.  He took a deep breath and let out a long, slow sigh.  He let his tail hang free for the time being, occasionally twitching it to get rid of an itch.

            That tail.  It was a source of great strength…and great nightmares.  And now Xander had something very similar to that tail inside of him.  A raging wild animal spirit, that wanted nothing more than to destroy.  The Saiyan monkey was a legend of great fear, and greater respect.  The Saiyans that could learn to control themselves while transformed in such a way were given greater respect, as they had to be extremely powerful, both in mind and spirit as well as body, in order to successfully do so.

            There was nothing in all the universes, short of a god, that could defeat the Saiyan monkey.  Anything else that faced it and lived ended up cutting off the Saiyan's tail.  And while a workable defeat, it was not technically a true defeat.  Not even a Super Saiyan could defeat another Saiyan transformed into the giant ape.  A Super Saiyan 2 could…barely, and considering the source of the transformation, so could the level beyond Super2.

            Goku started out of the daze he had developed into.  He looked one last time at his students, glad that the medical staff hadn't been needed after all, but happier still that they would be all right.  He turned and left the Level 2 training building, already planning and anticipating the next days training sessions.

_Fifth day:_

            Buffy, Xander, and Giles were all waiting in their Training gym, their personal one it seemed, all waiting for Goku.  Buffy had a bit more anger to her expression, and also was pacing agitatedly.  Xander was standing, leaning against the wall across from her, and Giles was meditating peacefully in the center of the floor.

            Finally, about ten minutes after 7 in the morning, the MTC activated and Goku walked in.  He was surprised to see the three or them no only up but rather active, judging from Buffy's mood.  "Hey guys," Goku greeted as he always did, "Have any nice dreams last night?  I know I had some really weird ones after I got my first upload."

            "Like you wouldn't believe," Xander practically growled out.

            Buffy stopped pacing after that and turned to Goku.  "So…what?  We weren't doing good enough for you?  You had to get us a damn fighting upgrade!  And to make matters worse, we've started shouting at each other in alien languages!  And we actually _understand_ them!"

            Goku shrugged, "I told you that after you got them, those are side effects from the Translators.  And as a matter of fact, no, you _weren't_ doing good enough.  6 weeks isn't as long as you think Buffy.   We don't have time to teach the old fashioned way.  Were here to make _strong_ warriors, not just an army of.  And shouldn't he be in his room?" Goku indicated Giles.

            Buffy just shrugged.  "He wanted to stick close after yesterday afternoon.  And Nightblade wanted some actual training after the other day." Buffy answered simply.  "By the way Goku, what _was_ the deal with everybody wanting to arm wrestle me in the _Mess_ yesterday?"

            Goku actually giggled at that.  Then he backed up, with his arms raised.  "Hey, I had nothing to do with that.  It was probably just the guys trying to see how you actually managed to floor Gortung with one punch.  How'd you do anyway?"

            Buffy just shrugged and answered cryptically, "Check the scoreboard next time you eat.  Now are we gonna start training or what?"

            "Fine, fine, have it your way," Goku held up his hands to hold off the Slayer's temper.  "Oh, by the way, I've set it up so that the gravity in here can be controlled vocally.  All you have to do is give your authorization at the start of a session, and shout out a gravity level.  For today, lets continue with the other day's levels and see how all that knowledge got mixed in.  Authorization: _Saiyaman_.  12.5 gravitons per cubic millimeter."

            At the two teens looks of confusion, Goku rapidly explained.  "Gravitons are the energy form of the effect of gravity, and the GEO technology basically allows us to generate gravitons, at any level, thereby controlling the level of gravity.  We've found that people from stronger gravities usually tend to be increasingly stronger than those from smaller pressures.  So we developed a training regimen that allows our fighters to get stronger.  With your GEO suits, the jackets and boots, you use squared measurement systems, but with a large room you use the cubic systems.  Understand?"

            "And the 12.5?" Slayer asked, as she felt the room, and especially herself, get even heavier.

            "The graviton equivalent of 12 Gs, from your Earth."

            "_Our_ Earth?" Slayer and Warrior X repeated.

            Goku just raised his eyes at them, then they remembered the whole deal about parallel universes and infinite possibilities, thereby infinite Earths.  "Oh, right," the both muttered sheepishly.

            Slayer then turned to the still meditating Giles and called, "Hey Nightblade, you said you wanted some actual training.  Well, Goku's here, and it doesn't get any more _actual_."  Giles just remained silent, with Nightblade sitting still across his lap.

            The other three shrugged and the sparring began.

            Sage was in the same concrete room she'd been in for the past few days, save the day she had been hooked up to a computer getting martial arts uploaded into her brain, reading one book out of a mountain of them.  It was the third time that she was reading this one, apparently because, it being the Codex, it seemed to shift as time itself shifted, and therefore each time she read it, there was always something different in it.

            Amana and Archer were greatly impressed by the young witch's talent at absorbing knowledge, at least that was what they told her each time the three spoke.  Willow, however, felt she could do better.  She felt like she was lagging behind, like she wasn't working hard enough, or enough period.  And while she did understand the importance of Goku's half of the training, if she wanted to be as good as she possibly could be, Willow had to work in the Mage tower for as long as she was scheduled to, whether she was done early or what.  She planned on spending even _more_ time here than scheduled if they would allow it.

After surpassing all the basic tests that Amana and Archer had given her, Willow asked them, just that morning as a matter of fact, to give them whatever level testing they needed to that would actually push her to her limits.  Not that the current tests weren't challenging enough as they were, but Willow finished them early, as she always seemed to do with tests.  So…she asked for a higher level, something that would take her extra time to do.

Obviously, she didn't do quite as well, but her marks, according to her two magic Trainers, were average…for someone _in_ that level.  So Willow was no longer Sage, she was upgraded to a full class _Mage_.

There were multiple levels to Mage-hood.  Starting with just a basic magic user, and therefore only known as 'Mage'.  The levels beyond proceeded with an upward number system, all the way to 12.  Each level was based on the number of spells the 'Mage' knew and could perform flawlessly.  Obviously each level was more than just a handful of spells each.  Between beginning Mage level and Mage Level 1, one had to know, and could perform perfectly at least 100 spells.  Then 250 _more_ spells between Mage 1 and Mage 2.  There was no exponential or real _number_ calculation between the levels, but needless to say, they got increasingly higher as the numbers did.

Beyond Mage, there were more individual titles, which were based more on power rather than spell number.  If one was akin to sorcery, then they received the title Sorcerer or Sorceress.  The same with basic witchcraft, Voodoo, Elemental magics, and Wizardry.  Yet it was the levels _beyond_ those that Willow was really wanting to sick her teeth into.

Beyond the simple titles, and the overall title of _Wicca_, which represented a balance of every art that was available in the Mage Tower, (basically you knew _everything_, but you knew it all equally, no specialization, and therefore less power in all of it) and was the level most held until they chose either the magic-type they wanted to focus on, or that which they had before they moved into the levels beyond.  The level of _Power Mage_.

Power Mage levels weren't based on number of spells, but how many different types of _magic_ one knew.  If one knew all the general arts that were qualified to be _Wicca_, only they also had enough power in each to be equal in power to some that had specialized in each area that was enough to reach the _first_ level of Power Mage.  To reach the second, that was where the Forbidden and Lost Arts came into play.  Most Power Mages, which numbered in total just over 10,000, at the Compound focused on the Lost Arts, which basically meant that only magic-users of a certain level could even learn, let alone _use_ such magicks, rather than the Forbidden Arts, as they were all so difficult to learn.  Most Power Mages actually ended up just focusing on a single Forbidden or Lost Art, and was named for that magic.

The Arch Mages however…  The knew _all_ the Lost Arts, and one was actually constantly inventing _more_ Lost Arts, but they also had mastered more than just one or two of the Forbidden Arts.  The least any of the Arch Mages knew was the Arch Mage Level 4 Clef Ryu-Kishin, an alternate dimensional creature that Willow had never met.  He…or rather _it_, knew only 4 of the Forbidden Arts.  Willow remembered there were _14_ Forbidden Arts, and only the Level 1 Arch Mage, who she had yet to even hear the name of, knew _all_ of the Forbidden Arts and had actually _mastered_ them.

Willow, despite knowing it might be well over her head, _wanted_ to master them as well.  But first, she had to start at the beginning, which is what she was doing right now.  Learning as many spells as she could possibly cram into her already nearly over-filled brain.

Magic book after magic book, ancient tome after ancient secret scroll all full of forgotten secrets.  Yet each tidbit of knowledge was as fascinating as anything Willow could imagine, some even more!  The boring part came when she found her mind beginning to wander away from her.

It wasn't something that happened that often, but when Willow got herself focused on a task she could sometimes focus her subconscious on the monotonous task while her "super consciousness" entertained other thoughts.  The unusual part came in the fact that Willow remembered _everything_ that she had subconsciously done, despite not having her full mind on the task, after she had finished anyway.

Her mind kept bringing up the strange dream that she had had during the knowledge upload the other day.  Sitting in front of a computer screen in a cramped office that was full of martial arts texts, which is actually what made it so cramped, and she was racing to copy the texts in entirety into the computer before her.  Unfortunately she didn't have a scanner, so she couldn't just do them as easily as she had transferred all of Giles' books to computer, (though it was probably a good idea after seeing the one negative result of that expenditure), forcing her to put them in by hand.  Yet, instead of just typing them into Word, or some other writing program, she seemed to be writing it in as a website or something, because she wrote each in with a very strange code.  It wasn't the normal computer code, that's for sure, because each of the symbols were something…_other_ than any symbol a computer made.  They seemed to be multi-dimensional, from a viewpoint anyway, and while they were infinitely complex, they seemed to make sense to Willow as she saw them.

What was disturbing about the dream…was that the young Mage couldn't remember any of the _details_ of the dream…only the results, which was instant access to all of the martial arts knowledge that had been put in her brain.  Willow sighed as she shook herself out of the temporary funk and brought herself back to reality.

Which was surprising because she suddenly found herself, after what she could have sworn was only a couple minutes, reading another large tome, and the pile around her significantly decreased.  Which meant that she had fully read and understood well over thirty of the books in front of her.  Willow shook her head, still to overwhelmed by just about _everything_ to put too much energy into being concerned about it.  She started reading again and went back to that little place in her mind she had just been and called forth the subconscious memories of the books she had just read, and started to consciously review the information.  Unknowingly, she was at the same time typing the information into an imaginary computer in that place in her mind.

It was night.  At least Buffy assumed it was night.  It was difficult to tell, as the Compound didn't really appear to even _have_ a sun.  The day's training had gone considerably better.  For both Buffy and Xander, that's for sure.  They certainly gave Goku enough of a workout that he was actually grinning when he left that evening.  The two humans had used skills and techniques that they had never even imagined before to counter the Saiyan's superior strength and speed, and Buffy's own sensing abilities seemed to have been growing.

Xander's own transformation from the Second Training, which he had explained to the girls as being that he had fully merged with the hyena spirit, giving him the full power of the hyena, but _he_ was in control instead of the base instincts, had certainly helped, and Buffy couldn't help noticing with her senses that he was more powerful because of it.  He was probably about as powerful as any Slayer.

Any Slayer but this one that is, she corrected herself as she continued with the kata her body was doing.  It seemed to be more natural than the katas Giles had had her memorize, the basic moves of some alien fighting form.  Alien to her anyway, because it was actually a simple Jujitsu form, one meant to stretch the muscles and limber up the tendons.

She wasn't sure how she knew all this, but she decided not to fight it, and just go with the flow, as there didn't seem to be any side effects of it.  At least…no non-beneficial ones.

Buffy sighed as she stopped the kata at its end and stood straight once again.  Then, looking around at the MTC, making sure she was alone and wouldn't be interrupted immediately, she pulled out her Global and opened it, selecting from the opening option menu, 'ENVIRONMENT FEATURES'.  A 'Waiting…' sign appeared and was then immediately replaced with the image of the Training Gym handler, a humanoid with scale-like feathers for hair and slitted reptilian eyes.

"What can I do for you Slayer?" he asked cheerfully.  Buffy was aware that while it wasn't English, it was at least some kind of Earth language.

Buffy smiled back and asked what she wanted.  "Is it…possible to seal this gym, that is make sure that nobody interrupts me as long as I'm in here or something like that?"

The reptilian, actually of a race from a planet called _Avia_, looked intrigued for a moment before asking back, "Well…why would you want that?"

Buffy just smiled a bit more alluringly and answered sweetly, "Well, you see…my Trainer is Goku, and…" Buffy stopped as the Avian nodded and made an expression of sudden understanding.

"Say no more.  I've heard of the guy.  He can be a bit overprotective sometimes of his students, but don't worry.  I can do as you ask, but the standard limit on an environment seal is about 90 hours, but I'll set it so you can lift the seal on your own.  Just give your authorization, and then the command; "Lift Environment Seal of Section 41" and give your authorization again.  Simple as that."  The Avian looked about to close the connection before he caught Buffy's eyes once more and asked, "Is there anything else I can do for you Slayer?"

Buffy smiled in appreciation at the being and answered, "Yeah, just one more thing.  What's your name?"  Raising, what passed for anyway, it's eyebrows at the question, the Avian just stuttered for a couple seconds before answering nervously, "Uh…it's Alvin actually.  I'm the general region manager of Training Areas sections 10 through 50.  If you need anything taken care of in your section, please, don't hesitate to call me."

Buffy nodded gratefully.  "Thanks Alvin, I just might do that.  And please, call me Buffy.  Only vamps call me _Slayer_.  Oh, those are my nicknames for _vampires_ by the way.  Thanks again Alvin.  Oh, by the way, the voice protocol on setting the gravity that Goku set up is still on, right?"

Alvin nodded, "It is.  And I'll remember that…Buffy.  Have a good workout."

"Thanks!" Buffy said one last time before closing her Global and turning back to her training.  Her _personal_ training.

"Authorization: _Slayer_…" Buffy hesitated slightly, before she confirmed her decision and spoke clearly and crisply, "…_50_ gravitons per cubic millimeter."  Immediately the air became thicker and Buffy found herself with a greater difficulty to breathe and her muscles automatically became taut just to keep her on her feet.  Taking a few deep breaths until her breathing was normal and her muscles more or less felt like they had adapted, despite feeling fifty times heavier than normal, Buffy started the same kata she had just finished all over again, this time at 50 times normal gravity.

Goku, after Xander's results from the second training along with Giles' assurances, had pushed the limit to 25 gravitons per cubic millimeter today, and they had all _still_ kept up with him.  More or less.  So long as the 1/8th Saiyan had his Super Saiyan transformation up his sleeve, none of the Slayer Team had any delusions at him being beat against them.  And Buffy was more than determined to face the Super Saiyan…and win.

Which had birthed quite possibly the _stupidest_ idea Buffy Summers had ever conceived.  The idea of training herself, at a slightly more accelerated pace than Goku was going.  At the rate he was going, they _might_ be as strong as he was by the end of the six weeks, but Buffy seriously doubted it.  Something about the Trainer just…_irked_ something in her.  So here she was, moving in 50 Gs and straining for each movement as though walking through solid rock.  It certainly felt like that after the initial start, that's for sure.

Buffy ignored the pain and forced herself, her body, to do better, to do more.  And it did.  Only now, there was no exhilaration after each move as there had been earlier when her muscles were growing and being challenged.  Her body knew it was at its limits, and was beyond them in fact.  And neither Buffy nor her body knew how long it might last, or even if it could.

 Yet she flowed just as gracefully as she had in 1 and a half gravities, as she demanded her body to move in the set patterns in her mind.  Finally, after a half hour, some minutes longer than it took her to do the same kata earlier, Buffy finished and she stood straight once again, her muscles feeling extremely sore from the work she was forcing from them.

A moment later she jumped into the air and did a mid-air spin kick, and barely managed to land on her feet, a bit off-balance in the heavier gravity.  She also noticed that if she had given the same strength in normal gravity, she probably would have been able to touch the ceiling, but as it was she didn't even get a foot of the ground.

"OK, none of the advanced stuff just yet Summers.  First thing's first…get used to the heavy stuff _then_ move on.  And how do we get used to the heavy stuff?" Buffy asked herself before she grimaced as the answer came to her as she recalled Giles' usual regimen of training in the after-school hours.  "Ofcourse, how silly of me," she said to answer her own question, "Run."  And with that she started laps around the outermost perimeter of the gym.

Her body felt sluggish, and undoubtedly heavy, but once she started moving, Buffy felt a little better, or at least not as under so much pressure.  As per usual when she worked out, Buffy let her mind wander, and she immediately found it on a very important subject.  Willow.

The redhead hacker was very important to the blonde Slayer, though she couldn't say exactly why.  She was her only female friend in all of Sunnydale, though there were others both Buffy and Willow associated with, Buffy was absolutely certain that she counted the shy hacker as her best friend, and that was as important to Buffy as her own mother was.

Ever since she became the Slayer, she had felt…alone.  She had the biggest secret anybody could have, and at the same time it was, in its own way, the coolest ever, and she had to hide it from everybody.  Even her own parents and the girls she called her best friends.  Best friends that turned on her the moment she became "too different" to be cool anymore.

And then the gym, the fire…Lothos.  The one thing that had helped her through that time was her friendship with the street punk named Pike.  He was one of the lucky ones, one of the would-be victims of a vampire that she had saved, and demanded that he be allowed to help.  She still thinks he just did it to impress her or some such nonsense, but that didn't matter…after Vegas.

Buffy shook herself before she let herself go down _that_ road again.  It was a long time ago.  Well…just under two years, but still…a long time ago.  She still can't believe he let her wear that coat check girl outfit though.

Buffy sighed.  Then an odd thought crossed her mind.  An image of shy little Willow in that same outfit.  Buffy blinked and staggered, almost tripping as the thought tumbled around in her head.  She blushed as she tucked the image to the back of her mind, and swearing to never let herself find out why that image actually came forth, and why it affected her so much.  Despite knowing that she'd never be able to keep that promise.

Willow was her best friend, first of all, and second of all, one did not think of their best friends…in that manner!  Which brought the blonde back to what she had first been thinking about.  Why Willow was so important to her.

The girl, from the first moment Buffy had seen her, was an enigma.  A living contradiction.  She had a natural beauty that Buffy knew, if allowed to nurture under the right care would turn the shy and timid creature into a raving beauty that would rival the combined popular beauty of Cordelia and all of her "Cordettes".  And yet, she tried to hide it beneath as much bland clothing as possible and her entire air practically screamed, "Pick on me, I'm shy, helpless, and have no life, and I want you to make me miserable!"  At least that was how Cordelia seemed to interpret it.  Buffy chose to hear it as, "I'm lonely!"

Which was definitely something the Slayer could identify with.  That was actually the first reason that Buffy had approached the young girl that first day at lunch.  The whole "need you to tutor me" was mostly an excuse, a true excuse, but an excuse nevertheless, that she had picked up after running away from Giles that first time in the Library.

And then, that night, Luke, Darla, and all of the Master's other minions had chosen Willow and Jesse as the victims for the night, and Xander and Willow were drawn into the world of the Slayer, letting Buffy have a real best friend in the two people, other than Pike, that said they wanted to help, and they would not take no for an answer.  At least they stayed out of trouble more than he did.

She had people, other than her watcher that knew all her secrets…well, all the important ones anyway.  And Xander…coming after her in the Master's lair.  He thought that she had forgotten about that, but she hadn't.  It was cruel of her to use him like that, that night at the Bronze, she knew, but she wasn't in her right mind then.  She was hurting, so she wanted to make everyone else hurt.  And despite the change in attitude, and how much she _did_ hurt her friends, they stayed by her, and supported her through her pain.  Like true best friends.

Willow especially.  The girl was just so innocent, so…so worth protecting from the evils of the world.  Buffy imagined that if she had to, all she would need would be to picture Willow's face to find all the evidence she would ever need to continue being the Slayer and protecting the world, or worlds as the case is now.

Xander was kind of like Pike in the way that he always tried to impress her…and then there was his little declaration just before the big Dance and the whole dying deal.  But…she just didn't feel that way about him.  She laughed slightly, despite her lungs already panting for every spare breath they could get, as she recalled once imagining being with Xander would be like.  Either he would worship the ground she walked on, or he would be like some fairy tale knight in shining armor, always kind and compassionate towards her, and at the same time listen to her thoughts and ideas.  A nice picture when she looked at it, but just that, a picture.  She didn't have the feelings, no matter how nice it would be.

Angel.  Now there was a migraine waiting to happen.  The feelings were there, and ohhh…his body, his eyes, heck the whole package!  But the information Goku had told them their first night here…  That changed things.  Big time.  She had actually had a nightmare about it already.  How the two of them, her and Angel, would come back to his apartment after a terrible fight where they were forced to run, soaked to the bone because it was either raining or they had swam away, she couldn't remember.  And then he would be so kind, and gentle and…  Wonderful.

And then she woke up alone, and didn't see him again for another two days.  He said horrible things about her, making her feel weak and like he was ripping her heart out and eating it in front of her.  Then… he showed his true face.  Holding Willow by the neck in front of them, threatening, taunting…  Snapping Jenny Calendar's neck, leaving her where Giles, who Buffy knew were sweet on each other, alone would find her…  Stalking her mother…  Standing with Drusilla and Spike like some kind of king with his queen and jester…  The last image though, it was always the same, Angel, the _real_ Angel, standing before this demon statue, at the center of which was this evil looking portal that was sucking the souled vampire into it.  The betrayal in his eyes was unmistakable, as was her own hands driving the sword through his chest.

Buffy shook her head one last time, trying to convince herself it was only a nightmare.  But the potential that Goku's warning had unlocked the doubts in Buffy's mind.  Was the mysterious vampire that had said from the start he only wanted to help Buffy…really worth a relationship?  Sure, he was great looking, and had the "bad guy" attitude that attracts all women to the dark, but he was a vampire too.  Maybe Xander's attitude, while a bit extreme, about all vampires being evil was the right one.

Buffy decided to think about it later, but reconsidered having any sort of relationship, outside of "professional" with the souled vampire called Angel.  Until she saw him again anyway.

Slayer finally had to stop, as her body, panting loudly for each breath, demanded she take at least a small break.  Her muscles were screaming with each movement, feeling stiffer than they had since before she ever became the Slayer.  She collapsed to the ground where she was and opened her Global to see the time.  She smiled as she saw that she had been able to keep running for an hour already, having been planning on either lowering the gravity or stop for a break sooner than she had.

One good thing, she decided, about training on your own was you get to find out most of your limits.

When her breathing returned to normal, the Slayer got back to her feet and considered either more running…or some other exercises.  She quickly decided and set at an incredibly brisk pace running around the large room as fast as she could, not stopping until she had done at least ten laps.

After that was completed, forcing herself to catch her breath, she dropped down near the MTC on the floor and quickly began doing as many push-ups as she could force herself to do.  She didn't stop or pause once until another entire hour had passed and only slowed during the tail end of that hour.  It wasn't until the push-ups became so difficult that she could barely even lift herself on her knees that she paused, but she didn't actually stop until she collapsed, and even then, she forced herself to do ten more.

On the final 'up', she decided that it was enough and let herself fall over onto her shoulder, and then continued to roll onto her back.  She lay there for a moment just feeling the heavy gravity and breathing deeply before she forced herself onto her next exercise.  Stomach crunches.

She didn't last as long as with her other exercises, but she blamed that mostly on being exhausted from the others.  After fifteen or twenty minutes, she wasn't keeping track, Buffy stopped, laid back down and centered herself, controlling her breathing precisely.  Then, in an incredible display of her supernatural strength, she pulled her legs back up to her chest, pressed her hands to the floor on either side of her head, and then shifting her weight as she needed to, she pushed down on the floor and performed a perfect flip up onto her feet.

The maneuver cost her though, as she felt her energy drop to zero, barely enough to keep her standing in the heavy G forces.  Finally, she decided that, for now, her body had had enough and she lowered the gravity.  "Authorization: _Slayer_…" she gasped as her breath seemed to be stolen from her lungs, "25.9 gravitons per cubic millimeter!" she ordered, as that was the last setting Goku had had the room at when he ended the group Training session earlier.  Immediately Buffy felt the relieving effects of the lighter gravity.  She didn't feel "light as a feather" certainly, but her breathing improved and she found she could at least move once again.

Buffy looked at the time, and decided that if she wanted to get any rest before Goku showed up at their apartment, she had better go back now.  She then ordered at the ceiling, "Return to normal settings."  Which was the command Goku had given when the session had finished.  It automatically reverted the gravity to 1 G and whatever other settings had been altered to the room during the training session.

            She then remembered just before she reached the MTC what Alvin had told her.

            Looking at the ceiling one last time she said clearly, "Authorization: _Slayer_, Lift Environment Seal of Section 41, Authorization: _Slayer_!"

            A chirping response was heard before Buffy noticed something like a flash crossed over the portal part of the MTC and Buffy touched the pad and instructed it to take her back to the apartment.  It immediately complied without any trouble and Buffy sighed in relief, having been secretly bothered that she might have trouble getting out because she wanted some privacy in her personal training.

            Thankfully that was not the case and Buffy immediately stepped through the Matter Transfer Conveyer Portal into the living room, and right into the back of Willow!  Too surprised for words, and moving at such a pace that she couldn't stop if she wanted to, Buffy slammed into the back of her friend and with a shout, they tumbled to the floor.

            "Omigod!  Willow, are you all right?" Buffy near-shouted, barely managing to catch the off-balance redhead.  Willow had let out her own shriek of surprise, but once she felt Buffy's grip and heard her voice, she immediately calmed down and turned to face her best friend.

            "Yeah, I'm fine Buffy, you just startled me," Willow placated.  Once their breathing was under control, both girls made their way to the spacious couch and sat down, facing one another.

            "What are you doing up so late?" Buffy asked, sure that it was indeed very late.

            Willow just shrugged.  "I just finished my training about two minutes ago," she said, and giggled when Buffy's eyes went wide.  "Don't worry Buffy.  It was all book stuff, and then testing me on my knowledge.  Besides, I learned allot, and you know me and learning stuff.  Hey, speaking of which, what are you doing out and about?  Goku keeping you out for some more training?"

            Suddenly Buffy felt her heart stop, knowing for certain that if she told her friend what she was up to, Willow would panic and stress, and maybe even worse, tell Goku.  Her mind raced for an answer, any answer.

            Willow was surprised to see Buffy's expression freeze while her complexion paled noticeably.  "Uh…well…actually I was taking a walk…through the gardens, you remember Goku showing us the Arboretum, right?  I just wanted to check it out.  But, so Goku didn't bust me or anything about slacking off, I turned the gravity up on my GEO thingies here, you know the jacket and boots."

            "You can do that?" Willow asked, surprised.

            Buffy nodded and pulled her Global out of the jacket pocket.  "I don't think there's much that you _can't_ do with that thing here." Buffy said, suddenly wincing as the pain from the workout her body had been put through was finally noticed.

            "Are you all right Buffy?" Willow asked, a note of concern in her question.

            "Yeah, I'll be fine," Buffy, grunted.  "I think I just over did it a little on the gravity.  But don't worry, not only do I have Slayer healing, but immortality to boot."

            "Yeah," Willow sat back, looking a little dejected at Buffy's reminder of their "immortality".

            "Wills?" Slayer asked, wondering what was bothering her friend.

            "I'm…it's nothing Buffy.  It's nothing," Willow tried to assure the Slayer.

            Buffy rolled her eyes.  "Yeah right, I'm not biting.  Come on Rosenberg, I _know_ you, and this is me here.  Spill girlfriend!" Buffy suddenly bounced a little closer to the redhead on the couch.  Buffy's light attitude brought a smile, however short lived, to the not so light Mage, before what was troubling her reminded her to be depressed again.

            "It's…well, the whole 'death being no big deal' thing.  I mean, immortality, when living on the Hellmouth, and the non-unliving kind at that, is pretty great, cause that means that we don't have to worry about being killed in some accident or whatever."  Willow tried to explain.

            "But…" Buffy led.

            Willow smiled and looked the Slayer in her eyes.  "But.  What about in the long term?  I mean…we're going to look sixteen for…_forever_!  That's going to cause some problems later on, with the government and stuff.  Not to mention, we've been raised knowing and believing that there is a natural order to things.  Death is one of those things.  Buffy, I'm not saying I _want_ to anytime soon, but…we're _supposed_ to die, when it's our time.  The Master doesn't count Buffy," she added before the Slayer could say anything.  "Prophecy is one thing, and all that, but…I…"

            Buffy frowned in concern when Willow stopped speaking, ducking her head.  Buffy startled suddenly when she realized Willow was crying.  Without a word, Buffy embraced her friend, ignoring all the pains in her body, focusing on helping her friend.

            "Hey?  What's the matter?  What brought this on anyway?" Buffy asked, holding her best friend tightly to her.

            After a few sniffles, and a couple failed attempts at speaking, Willow finally managed to answer.  Sitting up, tears running down her cheeks, she looked Buffy in the eye once more.  "I…it's the whole deal.  It's…too much Buffy!  It was the 'not dying' that made me hesitate in saying yes to the Powers in the first place.  I have no problem with the fighting for our life thing, I mean, we do that every day and night on the Hellmouth, and we've been doing pretty good so far I think.  But…humans are only meant to live a short while Buffy.  I've always known and believed that.  And now…"

            Buffy sighed.  Willow made some good points…yet there was something that she seemed to be forgetting.

            "Wills…I get what you're saying, I really do.  But remember, Slayer here!" Buffy shrugged, "I'm supposed to die before my 21st birthday, whereas the national standard for the human life span is almost a hundred years!  I'm not going to argue about being immortal, even if I do end up living for, oh I don't know, 5000 years!  It's not the amount of time that I have a problem with.  It's what I spend it on that matters.  That's all that matters."

            "Willow, all four of us are immortal now, and the only way we can die is if we're killed in this Tournament thing.  Frankly, I'm not keen on giving up after fighting for so long if we last past our first one.  This…Tournament is what scares me, not eternity."

            Willow smiled shyly, unconsciously Buffy gulped.  "You'll…we'll do fine Buffy.  You beat the Master, I'm learning more magic than I thought possible, and Giles has one of the most powerful weapons in all of existence.  And I mean _ALL _of existence.  We'll…do fine.  But why aren't you worried about…about the long term.  I mean, yeah, you've got your philosophy "Life is Short", but…that's just it Buffy.  Our lives are no longer short.  We have to start thinking long term.  And…I used to have trouble picturing where I'd be thirty years down the road, would I have a husband, children, what kind of job and life would I have?  Now…I'm thinking in _300_ years down the road."

            Buffy smiled and patted her hand on Willow's thigh, unknowingly bringing both of their pulse rates a bit higher.

            "I…don't know what or where we'll end up Willow, but I do know this…we're going to travel that road together.  So you don't have to worry about being alone for eternity, because I'll always be there with you.  No matter what.  And so will Xander and Giles."  Buffy smiled a bit wider, tears threatening to wetten her own cheeks.  "And the long term I'm thinking about is about 3 months from now.  Wills…Goku is Tournament champion for a few years here now, meaning that he's either the strongest or the most resourceful there.  Rumor is that all of a sudden, Evil has a couple champions of their own that are either Goku's equal, or actually stronger.  We…"

            "I know Buffy," Willow interrupted.  "And I'm not dismissing the problem that is that.  I just want to think about longer than going from Tournament to Tournament, fighting and living just to survive.  That's not life Buffy."

            Buffy stopped and frowned.  Then she nodded.  "Your right.  But that's why I'm so focused now.  If we get stronger than Goku _now_, then we'll be guaranteed the Tournament and we won't ever have to worry about it again.  Well, except when we're _there_.  And then we can focus the rest of our time on just living our lives.  Having a family, or spending it with the ones we have now."

            Suddenly Willow snorted, rolling her eyes.  At Buffy's raised eyebrow she explained.

            "I just pictured me and my mom "spending time together".  Wasn't that pretty of a picture."

            "Oh?" Buffy asked, her face scrunched in confusion.  "You know, you and Xander don't really talk that much about your parents.  We've talked about my mom because we're trying to keep my Slayer secret from her and that requires some planning, but I know practically nothing about your's and Xan's.  What's the deal?"

            Willow took a deep breath, signaling Buffy to sit back and get a bit more comfortable, because when Willow takes a deep breath, you know you're going to be there for a while.  "My mother is _Dr. Sheila Rosenberg_, PhD _Child Psychology_.  Guess who her first paper was about?"

            "Oh Wills," Buffy frowned, feeling sympathy for what Willow was saying.

            "Its…its not so bad really.  But after living with the woman for 16 years you'd think she'd have actually tried raising me?  Well, I mean for probably the first couple years she did ok, or at least _tried_.  But I think she got scared, or just plain _too busy_ after that because the only one who took me to the park or got me ice cream or listened when I got A's on all my report cards was Dad…and Xander.  And even Dad's busy, but at least he was willing to listen when he wasn't.  _Sheila_ on the other hand, even when she wasn't on the phone, or writing a paper, or discussing with a client, would either ignore me or tell me to go play with my toys, even though I didn't _have_ _any_!  And when I had something important to tell her or really exciting to show my mom…she'd immediately find _something_ to _make_ herself busy with!  And then when I start hanging out with you, and I try and tell her about it, she barely even listens and thinks your name is _Bunny_ not _Buffy_!  Dad at least was nice enough to ask about you, but didn't really judge, but he's just being a dad, and _Sheila_ goes straight to her cell phone and starts discussing this new paper about childhood associations with delinquent friends!  And then…!"

            Willow didn't get any further as Buffy saw she was about to break down or something and immediately enveloped her bestest friend in all the universes in a hug and not letting go until her friend _knew_ she was safe and that her Slayer would always keep her that way.  Willow just started sobbing, on the verge already, as soon as Buffy hugged her.  All the anger and frustration her mother had given the Mage by neglect and criticism where there should have been attention and love, came pouring out all at once as Willow beat against Buffy helplessly and kept crying and sobbing, sometimes cursing the redhead's dear mother out.  Buffy just held on and somewhere halfway through it all she started silently crying with the Mage and didn't stop until after Willow had ceased her own tears.

            A long time later, neither sure of the hour, just that Willow had been crying for at least an hour already and only quieted to silent tears and Buffy's embrace little more than ten minutes ago, the two friends finally released themselves, their joints creaking from having not moved for over an hour.

            "Feeling any better?" Buffy whispered quietly, softly stroking Willow's hair.

            Absently leaning into the touch, Willow just nodded, her eyes closed.  After another minute, her eyes opened and she let out a long, tear-stained sigh.  "Some.  Not…not really even good, but…better than I was."

            "Oh Wills…I had no idea that you were so lonely…that…" Buffy tried to comfort.

            "Don't worry about it.  I've…gotten used to it.  And like I said, its not so…"

            "No!" Buffy snapped, startling Willow.  "No it _is_ that bad Wills!  If it weren't, you wouldn't have spent the last hour crying in my arms.  I don't care how much your mother has to do or has going for her, it's a Mom's job to be nosy and to check up on you and to be a busybody!  Look at mine for crying out loud!  I love her like nothing else in this or any other world, and she's always ending up in trouble, or I have to keep my secrets from her, and I'm always lying to her!  Gawd Wills!  This bitch that gave birth to you isn't your mother!  If she were she'd actually care if you disappeared for three days, which by the way you have!  When we get back I am so gonna…"

            "No Buffy," Willow interrupted Buffy's tirade.  "No.  Don't.  If…if Sheila doesn't want to be involved with my life, then that's her business and her problem.  Not mine.  But…now that I think about it…when we get back home, you mind if I spend a couple nights with you and your mom?"

            Buffy smiled, fresh tears threatening again.  "No, I most absolutely certainly would not mind.  And neither will Mom."  Suddenly Buffy's face fell.  "Oh no!  I completely forgot!  What am I gonna tell Mom when we get back?!"

            Willow immediately adopted Buffy's worry, though she knew there was really only one solution to the issue.  Tell Joyce Summers the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  _'So help us God,'_ Willow prayed as she imagined the result of telling Buffy's mom the whole Tournament and Powers deal on top of the whole Slayer-destiny package.

            "Well, we've got six weeks to worry about getting some kind of story straight," Willow assured the Slayer, "not to mention your two best friends and an imposing authority, Librarian figure to support whatever you come up with, and hopefully that will be enough for your mom."

            "Yeah…I hope you're right," Buffy muttered uncertainly.

            Finally the Slayer couldn't take it anymore and the, still set at 10Gs, GEO jacket was getting more painful than it was worth, so she quickly removed it.  As soon as she did, she started when she heard Willow beside her gasp in shock.  Then she looked herself.  Her entire upper body was covered in bruises, as though she were just one big bruise herself.

            "Buffy…how high a gravity did you set your jacket to?" Willow asked, her voice quiet.

            Sensing the potential panic attack, Buffy thought as fast as she could and answered, "Oh, uh, not too high.  Just a couple Gs higher than what Goku had us at in training.  I was only walking so I figured that I needed to go higher to make it a workout.  Why?  Besides Will, the bruises will be gone by the time Goku gets here.  You know me and my Slayer healing."

            Willow shook her head.  "Buffy, come with me," she commanded, getting up from the couch and walking immediately for her room.  At a loss, Buffy just shrugged to herself, and grabbing her jacket, followed the Mage to the room, that still had SAGE stenciled beside the door, and then both entered the redhead's room, which was identical to Buffy's in every way except that there were about three different colored outfits laid out on the dresser, identical to the black one Willow was wearing, except blue, white, and green.

            "Look Will, I'm ok, it doesn't even hurt any more, really," Buffy tried to calm her friend before the panic could fully develop.

            "Well if it doesn't, it's certainly going to be by morning," Willow told her sternly.  "My arms looked exactly like that when Goku took me to the Clinic the other day.  It's a side effect of all the gravity pushing down so much.  When it's at a level you aren't used to that is.  Come on, Amana showed me how some medical techniques today, and not only do I need the practice, but _you_ are going to need it.  Trust me on this Buff."

            "But Will, weren't you hurting when you came back?" Buffy asked as she removed the GEO boots.

            "Yeah, but not as bad as I would have been hurting had I been allowed to heal naturally.  Not to mention, those "doctors" treat you like so much meat sitting there, and they only treat the muscles with no regard for pain or what not.  Besides, I promise to be much gentler.  And I thought you liked massages anyway?" Willow asked with a knowing smile on her face.

            Buffy's eyebrows shot up, "This is about a massage?  Well why didn't you say so?"  Willow just grinned as Buffy immediately made herself comfortable, back up, on the bed.

            "Oh, I, uh…need you to take your pants off too," she said a bit nervously as she took off her own boots and sat them aside.  She didn't catch the heated look Buffy cast her way, but when she did look back, Buffy was standing again and slowly removing the gi-pants.

            "You know," Buffy drawled as she repositioned herself back onto the bed, "I don't let just _anyone_ get inside my pants you know.  I try to avoid having an "_easy_" reputation."

            Willow's eyes went wide and her face flushed crimson as she suddenly found it difficult to breath, she tried to correct her friend in her intentions, although she could no more deny the allegation than form a full sentence.  "I…but…you…I mean…no, I don't…uh…"

            Buffy smiled and giggled somewhat at her friend, "Chill Will, I'm just playin' with ya.  Come on, let's get with the relaxation motions here!  I'm never one to turn down a free massage."

            That seemed to get the Mage back underway and she quickly nodded while Buffy laid her head down on her folded hands, she quickly removed her jumpsuit and before a word could be spoken, was up on the bed beside Buffy so her hands could reach the Slayer's shoulders, and that would be the _only_ parts of their body's touching.

            The moment that Willow's hands started their special, and recently learned, magic, Buffy felt more relaxation than she had imagined in weeks.  "Uhhhhh… Gawd Wills, you are good at this!" Buffy moaned after a few minutes.

            "Thanks, but I haven't even started on the advanced stuff yet," Willow said with a smile.

            Buffy could only moan in response.  Willow smiled further as she started rubbing more than working the muscles in the Slayer's incredible tense shoulders.  However, Willow knew from experience, as well as Amana's teachings, that Buffy would need more work on her middle and lower back, but unfortunately…the leotard was in Willow's way.

            Frowning slightly, Willow delayed as much as she could by working as much as possible on Buffy's shoulders and upper arms until she could no longer avoid it if she wanted her friend to feel like anything other than a giant sore in the morning.

            "Uh…Buffy?  I…kinda need you to push down your leotard some…so I can get at your lower back," Willow added hastily.  Buffy only moaned in reply, and for a moment Willow thought she'd have to repeat her request, but before she knew it, Buffy was lowering the straps and working her arms out of the leotard, but making sure she still stayed covered.  Then, almost as a last second thought, she pushed it to just under her breasts and before anybody could have seen anything, resumed her face down position on Willow's bed.

            The red haired Mage herself, however, was suddenly finding it difficult to breath because it was so stuffy and hot in the room all of a sudden.  Gulping to quell, (or maybe voice), her concerns, Willow just focused on her teachings and started to work on Buffy's back again, finding her rhythm back and getting used to the Slayer's surprisingly soft skin under her fingertips.

            Working the energy flow, the pressure points, and making sure to loosen the muscles beforehand, Willow worked her way steadily down her best friend's bruised back, which amazingly was actually healing before her eyes.  The leotard kept getting lower, and lower, until Willow had reached the small of Buffy's back and the black satiny material was bunched around the Slayer's hips, rather low, and the Slayer herself was fast asleep.  Willow smiled fondly, recalling what Amana had said the trust someone showed when they fell asleep in such a vulnerable position, as well as seeing the peace on Buffy's face, a very rare picture indeed.

            Finally Willow sighed, and gulping one last time the image of Buffy's near fully naked body before her into her mind, Willow tried to pull the leotard back up, but she couldn't work it under or around the blonde's breasts.  Finally, rather than risk a very highly embarrassing moment, she just decided to wake Buffy up, glad that at least one of them had gotten some sleep.

            "Buffy?" Willow whispered softly, gently rolling Buffy's shoulder.  The blonde Slayer groaned a bit, but obviously did not awaken.  "Buffy?" she tried a bit louder.  Same response.  Willow sighed and rolled her eyes.

            Suddenly, the Mage's orbs filled with wide realization and humor.  She leaned close to Buffy's ear and then whispering right next to the organ, she said breathily, "Rise and shine, rise and shine."  That seemed to do it as Buffy groaned a bit louder and her face scrunched up rather cutely before she unconsciously rolled onto her side and opened her eyes.

            The first sight upon waking that morning for Buffy Summers was one that she wanted to wake up to for the rest of her entire life, whether that be centuries or weeks.  "Willow?" she asked in confusion once the euphoria of half-sleep had disappeared.

            "It's time to wake up.  I just finished your massage, and though I don't have a clock, I'm pretty sure Goku's going to be here soon.  And…" Willow's green eyes briefly flickered down to Buffy's exposed body, "…you need to get dressed first.  I'll see you for breakfast," the red-faced Mage suddenly said and disappeared from the bed and into her own bathroom.

            Buffy briefly followed the path that she had done something wrong until she sat up and realized with a start that she felt more of a breeze than she was supposed to.  She looked down and her face immediately matched the same color as Willow's had been.  The Slayer, gulping as the implications of flashing your best friend accidentally began to run through her mind, worked the leotard the rest of the way on, fitting her arms in the straps and securing it in place before jumping off the bed and into her pants so fast that she forgot to be surprised at the speed.

            Without a word or glance at Willow, Buffy just grabbed her GEO suit (jacket and boots) and left the room for her own as fast as possible.

_Seventh day:_

            Xander awoke unusually early, that is to say before Goku started bellowing and before the alarm went off, because he was sure as he lived on the Hellmouth that he could never, ever sleep through either.  Still a bit groggy he threw back the wonderfully warm and soft covers and made his way to the edge of the bed.  He sat there for a moment, wearily rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, feeling the latent aches from yesterday's workout, which in his opinion had gone better than all the previous training sessions put together, even the one of him versus Buffy.

            Finally, the youth got up from the bed, pleasantly surprised to feel no detriments in his muscles as he had for the past couple days upon waking, and walked toward the bathroom and only just remembering to take off his clothes, jumped immediately into the sonic shower and shouted out, "ROCK ME BABY!" and immediately the blue lights and force field snapped on, deafening Xander.

            Even in private, Xander couldn't help who he was as he started pretending that he was pretending he was singing at a rock concert live, in the shower, though he couldn't even hear himself.  Far shorter than the girls showers were attuned to, Xander's barely lasted thirty seconds on blue before shifting to green.  However, sixty seconds after that, they shifted to yellow, and then immediately to orange, and finally held for over three minutes on red, the next to highest setting.

            Xander could hear no sound, but his every fiber could _feel_ the sonic vibrations coursing through him, vaporizing all non-him material on, in, or around his skin.  Though for the past couple days, ever since the upload thing, Xander's hearing, he found, was _far_ more sensitive.  Which was why he had set his shower just yesterday to the next to highest setting, even his new hyper-sensitive ears couldn't detect nor identify the sound.  All the levels below that had been enough to make his ears bleed, if not explode, he was sure of.

            Rather than go back down a level, at the end of the allotted time, the red shift sonic shower just cut out altogether, leaving Xander with a brief sensory overload as the sound suddenly came rushing back at him, full intensity, and everything was no longer in shades of red.

            Blinking furiously, and shaking his head equally so, for a couple seconds, Xander soon stepped out of the shower and redressed, still amazed that his clothes felt as fresh as ever, despite all the sweating and dying he had done in them.

            Xander stepped outside his apartment, surprised to see Goku and the others, well, not Giles, already sitting over at the breakfast bar.  Goku wasn't eating, rather was discussing something with a person on his global.  Willow was stuffing down eggs pretty quickly and washing each mouthful down with an overwhelming amount of juice before audibly swallowing it all.  Concerned, Xander quickly made his way over to them, just as Buffy came out of her own room.

            "Hey," the Slayer asked everyone, "how come the alarm didn't go off today?"

            Xander realized at the Slayer's question that he indeed _hadn't_ heard the annoying wake-up call yet.  Willow answered their questions as soon as she finished washing down her latest mouthful.

            "It did.  Both of you must have been in your showers."

            Buffy and Xander exchanged surprised looks before shrugging and walking up to the bar and ordering their breakfasts.  Xander noticed that Buffy looked a bit more tired than normal, even before a sonic shower.

            "Hey Buff, you okay?  You look tired?" he asked, concerned for her well-being.

            "I'm fine Xander, I just haven't gotten used to the early starts is all," Buffy answered a bit too quickly for his liking.

            Xander, even though he could no longer identify it as separate, felt the hyena's instincts and innate knowledge that Buffy was lying, or at least was covering something up.  In fact, if it weren't for the fact that it made him want to growl, he would have sworn it was his own instincts.  The merging of him and the full hyena spirit apparently went beyond just the physical he had been appreciating.  There were mental and emotional burdens as well.

            For starters…

            Xander shook his head abruptly and started shoveling the food that had just appeared in front of him into his mouth, focusing on _not_ thinking about what he was feeling about Buffy and Willow right now.

            Even though he now identified Buffy as the Alpha of this new pack, _their_ pack, some instincts couldn't be controlled through hierarchal politics.  Maybe he could be the prime, the second, the Alpha's mate.  While he didn't like using the terms, that's how half of his personality was looking at it right now, and he couldn't exactly argue with the logic of being Buffy's beau.  Instead of Angel…

            The mere thought of the souled vampire caused Xander growl low in his throat, unfortunately drawing stares from the others, so he quickly covered it up as the beginning of a cough.  Xander tried to forget about his competitor in Buffy's affections for the moment, saving the instincts and emotions for later, during training against both Goku and Buffy.

            Xander managed to control himself for the rest of breakfast, and several minutes later, after Buffy checked in on Giles, who was still meditating away in his room, Xander found himself in the workout room.  Not quite expecting the change of pace after having trained in sparring for the past couple days, both Xander and Buffy stared for a couple seconds before moving on.  Xander immediately got up on one of the treadmills just before Buffy moved on…to Goku.

            "I thought we were _training_ today?" she asked in a somewhat condescending tone.

            Goku shrugged.  "Your skill level, thanks to the uploads, is up to par by now, which means we go back to focusing on your strength and speed.  And this is actually more for Mage's benefit than yours Buffy."

            Buffy, startled immediately turned around and stared at Willow who, still in her black jumpsuit, was staring in amazement at the workout gym.  Gulping, and hoping to just put that morning out of her mind for the time being, Buffy just nodded.  "Fine.  I'll be over adjusting my GEO settings, and then you can focus on Wills.  And…I'll do my own thing."  Buffy walked over to where Xander knew the big white circles were.

            A few minutes later, Buffy came back, walking normally as far as anybody could care and got up on one of the treadmills, a few units separated from Xander.  Willow was over grunting at the weight machines that Goku had tricked him onto the first day, and the hyena boy was not jealous in the least of his best friend.

            Both Slayer and Warrior X were running full out on the treadmills, Xander surprised by himself at how well he was doing, when he noticed that Buffy was beginning to sweat over at her machine.  Growing somewhat concerned, Xander contemplated going over to her, but shook it off, sure of the Slayer's response.  Something painful, some yelling, and undoubtedly an earful of "I don't need or want your help!"

            Xander just shook his head, sighed, and tried to run faster.  And did.

            Xander almost startled in surprise, but kept the faster pace.  He didn't even feel winded!  Smiling, Xander glanced over at the Slayer, who was already sweating, driving Xander's sense of smell crazy as soon as he allowed himself to notice it, but she was also going quite a bit faster than him he noticed.  Xander ordered himself to match and it was only he began to pant that he noticed just how fast a Slayer _really_ was.

            With barely a conscious effort, Xander matched it so that his footfalls sounded exactly the same time that Slayer's did.  Buffy looked over at him, a curious look on her face, as she seemed to have just noticed the odd occurrence.  Xander, who was now sweating as much as she was, just grinned back at her, causing the Slayer to grin back, and then run faster.

            Xander's grin widened as well and he started moving faster himself.  Less than ten seconds after, their footfalls fell in tandem again.  Buffy grinned back at Xander, a more mischievous look in her eyes and she started moving so fast that her arms and legs began to blur to the Warrior's eyes.

            Xander returned the mischievous glint and started putting everything he had into running faster.  He no longer cared about matching Buffy, now he was out to beat her.  Both runners were breathing heavy and had rivulets of sweat running down every inch of them, but they kept trying to run and move faster, already their extremities blurring from such high-speed motion.  The treadmills, made to be used for such high-speed running, weren't even shaking from the footfalls, instead as steady as pavement in a mountain.

            Goku came back over, silently, as the two were still going at it, occasionally chancing a glance over at their "running partner" to see which one was actually going faster, and then proceeded to go faster themselves, even if they were in the lead.  Mage had finally gotten the bar off the handles, and that was mostly thanks to her already strenuous gravity training, whereas Xander had only needed an hour to force the strength from himself.

            Goku checked the time.  A little over ninety minutes, meaning that the two here had been running like this for over an hour, at least.  Goku nodded, a smile on his handsome face and went back over to see how the Mage was doing.

            Xander was no longer glancing over at Buffy as he ran.  He focused entirely on taking the next step and making the time between that and the next shorter than the time before it.  His lungs burned, his muscles screamed for mercy, and his vision and other senses became tunneled.  He only heard his heartbeat, only saw the handle bar before him, only smelt his own sweat and scent, and only felt the landing of his feet on the treadmill.

            Buffy was in a similar position, but she kept glancing over at Xander and was amazed that his legs and arms were blurred as much as her own.  The Slayer's senses, however, were not tunneled, in fact not even focused down.  Instead they seemed to broaden, taking out the nonsense, or maybe just organizing it, and allowing her to hear Xander's heartbeat, Willow grunting as she struggled with the weight machine, the swish of Goku's tail against his clothing as it twitched.  She could see every contour of the wall in front of her as though an aerial photo of a mountainous landscape, but at the same time she could see the same detail of _everything_ in her range of vision, and it was incredibly bright but not painfully so, just…crystal clear and lit up, like with a spotlight.  And then there was her sense of smell.  Oh gawd!  The smells!

            And then there was her new, sixth _power_ sense.  She could _feel_ every electron of energy coursing through Xander as his power rose to its maximum to keep up with her.  She could feel the suppressed, but burgeoning power(s) within Willow as her muscles were slowly strengthened through new use.  And then there was Goku.  She felt as though she could reach inside each of her friends and know _everything_ there could be to know about their power, their bodies, almost even their minds!

            Buffy tried to focus herself past the sensory overload, which actually wasn't _overload_ per say, but increase in her ability to interpret the data her senses were sending her, and more on running faster, despite being in over 35 Gs.

            Buffy was sure that she still wasn't ready for 50 Gs in normal training, though she could probably do just as well, she knew that she tired out too easily in a high enough gravity.  So she just went with ten G's higher than what Goku had probably already set the room to.

            Which brought to mind something the Slayer had noticed.  With the GEO suit, it didn't affect the outside gravity; it just affected how many gravitons were being artificially pressed against your body.  Then…there was the outside, or environment's gravity, which pressed on you, or pulled actually, as a whole, GEO suit included.  Which meant that however many Gs that the suit was set to, was added with whatever gravity the environment was.

            Buffy wouldn't be surprised if the room was actually a couple levels higher than what training had been yesterday, but then that would mean she actually _was_ running in 50 Gs.  And she'd kept up for this long?

            Buffy smirked to herself, and taking a deeper breath on her inhaling pant, started going for broke, pushing herself to exhaustion…and then going beyond, if she could.  A whistling sound began to accompany the flashes of movement from Buffy's arms and legs, something that no ordinary human would find possible, on Earth.  After all, a human raised on Earth that suddenly found himself on Mars could jump over three times his height and almost twice as fast, provided he was unencumbered by the necessary space suit.  Buffy had been living in g-forces equivalent to somewhere on Jupiter for the past few days, and just the night before, had pushed herself through a full strenuous workout in forces beyond anything found on any surface in the Solar system.

            Now, in actually 15 Gs, plus the 35 she was putting herself through, Buffy's mystically enhanced body was exceeding all measured speeds of un-artificial nature in human history.  Only when her muscles began to cramp, and she pushed past the pain and forced herself to remain at her current speed, did Buffy's senses lose the all-encompassing crystal clarity and focus down to what was right in front of her like Xander's had.

            The Warrior in question was already past that point by now, and he knew now that there was nothing that he could do to catch/keep up with the Slayer any longer.  He was at top speed, for the moment, and he couldn't force anything more from him, not for anything.  Unfortunately, he just didn't have the energy to be frustrated and so kept his power level and speed a constant.

            It wasn't until the whistling became noticed that Warrior X realized just _how much_ faster Buffy was moving than him.  He didn't stop running, or decrease his speed any, as he looked over at Buffy, seeing her body move in a constant blur, but still able to be recognized because she was staying in one place, the whistling sound coming from her general direction, as well as quite a hefty breeze coming from it as well.

            Xander barely noticed, and then only because his hearing had stopped being so focused down with his attention diverted from just the running, when Goku and Willow came at a light sprint from the weight machines.  He did, however, notice Willow's gasp of amazement and looked back at them and then at Buffy, seeing no change except the stares of shock and surprise coming from the two observers.

            _'What's the big deal?  We're only running,'_ Xander asked himself.

            He wasn't as surprised as he might have been when he answered himself as well.  _'Probably because we're moving too fast.  Only Goku's supposed to have the speed, remember?'_

            _'Yeah, yeah, I remember.  Sure I can't go any faster?'_

            _'Damn.  Yep, very sure.'_

            Xander ended the internal conversation abruptly when he shouted out loud, out of breath but managing to ask it all in one sitting without gasping between words, "So what's the big deal with staring?  We're just running!"

            Goku almost seemed to startle when Xander had shouted, and for good reason as he had thought that neither runner had heard him and Willow approach, let alone knew they were there!  Goku glanced between the Slayer and Warrior X, still somewhat in shock at the advancements these two had made.  No human had ever begun moving so fast so soon after coming to the Compound for initial training.  _Especially_ not the speed Buffy was running flat out at.  Goku focused his senses a little more sharply on Buffy's power levels and received the shock of his immortal life, up to that point.

            Buffy had somehow focused _all_ of her power to _just_ her speed.  And while yes, strength and speed were physically both controlled by muscles, the energy put forth from ones life force, aka _Ki_, was entirely different in placement and management.  Usually, in a battle, one increased power to _all_ aspects; raw power (for energy attacks and energy use), strength, speed, and endurance.  But Buffy had somehow found a way of increasing just one to incalculable levels, given her power was still rising from her last measurement, by placing _all_ of her power to it.

            Goku hid his gulp as he began to notice that both Slayer and X's energy were beginning to run rather low, but Xander's was dropping at a faster rate than Buffy's for some reason.  Maybe she was just plain stronger, he deduced.  Or had deeper energy reserves.

            Then it came to him as Xander began to drop in speed.  Buffy was _used_ to the way her body handled supernatural energy and she knew how to hold the energy in reserve, as well as regulate it so it wasn't all wasted in a single burst.  Xander, given his sudden change in form, strength, and power in just the last couple days, had little experience in seeing how his new body handled.  _'We'll have to fix that,'_ Goku decided, thinking to himself, grinning slightly as both runners slowed, slowly.

            Finally, Xander was forced to quit, his energy as near zero as it could go and still leave enough for him to remain standing.  Buffy kept going a bit longer, no longer entirely blurred, but still going at an incredible speed.  A few minutes after Xander finally quit though; the Slayer was down to a heavy jog and breathing extremely heavily.

            "All right, that's enough Slayer.  Time for another exercise while Mage takes to the treadmills," Goku told her, after Willow had given him a pleading look.

            A few seconds after Goku spoke, Buffy finally let herself slow to a stop and had to support herself on the handle bars to remain in anything close to standing.  Mage and Warrior X were instantly by the Slayer's side, helping her off the treadmill to one of the nearby machines that had a bench as part of it and sat her down on it to rest for a bit.  Ofcourse she complained about it.

            "Come on guys," Buffy exhaustedly whined, "I don't need any help to _sit_ down!"

            Xander huffed down onto the bench of a nearby machine.  "Geez Buff!  I was goin' all out and I didn't hit _near_ the speeds you did!  Heck, you _do_ know that you were blurring right?"

            "Blurring?" Buffy repeated with a tired air of confusion.

            Xander nodded and looked at Goku, who taking the hint, immediately raced in a circle around the trio, his form seen as nothing more than a blur to the human eye.  "Blurring." Xander answered, pointing at Goku once the Saiyan had stopped.  "Oh," Buffy replied.

            The Slayer then turned to the Mage.  "So how'd you do Wills?" she asked.

            Blushing slightly, Willow looked down and shrugged.  "Took me almost an hour to lift the bar off.  And I could only keep up for a short while.  You guys were running for longer than I was working out myself."

            "And guess what," Goku smiled down at the girl.

            Willow looked up with somewhat of a "not-surprised" look on her face.  "I get to run?" she asked.  Goku grinned and nodded.  Then he pointed.  Sighing, the Mage immediately complied and stood up and went over to the treadmills.

            "I'll let you two rest up for a minute, then Xander, I want you back on the weight machine while I show Buffy something new, all right?"  Slayer and Warrior X nodded, still too tired to respond in any other way.

_*                       *                       *_

            Buffy stared in disbelief at her Trainer.  "You're kidding me here, right?  You kid and joke where I find it not funny!" Buffy snapped at the 1/8th Saiyan.

            "No joke," Goku answered soberly.  "Hit it as hard as you possibly can.  Then you're done for the day."

            They were standing against the wall of the workout gym, and before them was a device that no human would ever recognize as a tool in exercise.  It was, in part, similar to the carnival mallet and bell, what with the scale in the back of it with funny little sayings said alongside the scaling.  What made it different was that there was a horizontal T-bar extending from the center of the carnival scale, and the branches of the T going vertical in front of the warriors.  At the center of the bar before them was a simple, small, half foot by half foot black square pad.  And Goku had just told her that all she had to do was hit the pad as hard as she could, and Goku's training of the Slayer was done for the day.  The rest of it was hers to do with as she pleased.

            "So…if I wanted to hang around and help Willow out with her continuing training…?" Buffy asked.

            Goku shrugged.  "I wouldn't mind.  In fact, I'd probably appreciate the help.  But just because **my** training of you is finished…doesn't mean you don't still have Second Training."

            "But we already got the upload…" Buffy trailed off as she realized what Goku meant.  "The environment training."  Goku nodded and repeated, "The Environment Training.  Now hit the damn pad so I can get a measure of your strength and you can get going."

            Buffy rolled her eyes and huffed at the ceiling.  "Fine."

            Taking several deep breaths, Buffy calmed her emotions and centered herself.  Feeling her power, she focused it into her gut as she had learned to do, part from Kung Fu lessons in her head, and mostly from her experience that she was able to hit harder using this technique.  At least that was what Xander said.

            Focusing all she could of her power into her gut, and feeling the burning sensation that told her something was happening, Buffy slowly reeled back her fist, opening her eyes to focus on the pad.  Buffy began to move the gathered energy from her gut to her fist, but kept it slow, until she snapped her fist forward and released all the energy directly through her fist and into the pad.  To Buffy's surprise, the pad moved backwards some after her hit, the T knocked inwards from the force of her blow.  Buffy watched in interest as a marker was released from somewhere in the device and began going up and down the scale.

            Finally, after going to the very top and the very bottom a couple times, the marker settled firmly on, if Buffy was reading correctly, _"OK, so you know how to throw a punch."  _Buffy blinked in surprise and looked back at Goku who was recording it into his Global.

            "Care to explain this…rating system of yours?" Buffy asked dangerously.

            "Not really," Goku said with a peculiar grin, and then immediately turned back around and went to where Warrior X and Mage were still working out.

            "Hey!  What am I supposed to do know?!" Buffy demanded to know.

            Goku shrugged as he looked over his shoulder at her.  "Go to Second Training and ask them," was his reply.

            Buffy opened her mouth to retort, but nothing came out so she just snapped her jaw shut in a huff of air.  Then sighing, Buffy shrugged and muttered to herself, "Why not?  Got nothing better to do right now anyway."  So she went over to the MTC, and directed it to the Second Training Facility.

_*                       *                       *_

            Buffy, the first chance she got, was going to kill Goku.  Fair or not.

            The moment she had arrived in the Second Training tower, the technicians from the other day insisted on finishing her base-line measurements before giving her _any_ training.  So…she went back to the lung capacitor, and actually died this time in the Vacuum Chamber, and then they tested her muscle resilience in a hydro environment in the "air-tank" that Chad had told them about earlier in the week.  After that, she got a bunch of sensors stuck on her and put on a treadmill, which then filled with a liquid that while allowed Buffy to breathe normally, did not allow her to float like in normal water.  In fact, it was like being a hundred meters under water, which felt like heavier gravities, and she still had her GEO set to over 35 G's!  What was really funny about that last part of it though was, she could've sworn she actually felt herself sweating, despite being submerged in an oxygen-providing liquid.

            Several hours after, Buffy was allowed to rest on a bench while they either prepared the next test for her, or her first training exercise.  Not that the Slayer saw much difference between the two.

            "Slayer?" a voice called for her.

            Buffy looked up, expecting to see another of the half-marine technicians wanting her form more testing or to ask her how she lasted so long without oxygen.  Instead, the blonde was surprised to see someone dressed similarly to her, but without the boots.  Instead she saw someone who looked almost entirely human, except his toes were webbed.

            He had wet, light brown hair, heavily tanned skin with a five-day old beard on his rugged face, and soothing sea-blue eyes.  He had both a serious demeanor and a disarming grin on his face.  "They call me the _Mariner_.  I'll be your instructor for the underwater training course.  Follow me please."

            Buffy shrugged and got up and followed the Mariner.  _'He reminds me of Kevin Costner, 'cept with darker skin and a little more sun-streaked hair than he had in _Robin Hood_.'_ Buffy thought as she followed the bare-foot human mutation.

_*                       *                       *_

            Willow was panting heavily, and as far as she cared, drenched to the bone.  Goku hadn't let her off the treadmill since before she got _on it_!  What was worse was she couldn't stop thinking about what had happened with Buffy that morning (or was it last night?), and the two of them, she knew, needed to talk about it.  Unfortunately, both she and Xander had been let go early.  Or at least that was what Goku told her when she had enough breath to ask.

            The untrained Mage did understand why this physical training was necessary; she just wanted to know why it was so hard.  For her anyway.  Buffy and Xander seemed to have no trouble whatsoever with the physical aspects of the training.  In fact it was what they were excelling at!

            Willow knew she'd never been very good at PE and sports and stuff, but where her life depended on it she found that she had untapped reaches of both physical and mental prowess.  So why was it still so damned hard?!

            She focused everything she had left into running just the tiniest bit faster, but her body just couldn't give any more.  She'd thought of trying some of the body enhancement spells she'd learned over the past couple days, but she didn't have enough concentration, let alone the energy, to spar to cast any of them, and she doubted that Goku would let her use them anyway, probably viewing it as cheating.

            Ultimately, it was just a matter of will before the Mage finally collapsed.  When she did, the treadmill stopped instantly and was like solid ground under her feet.  Her neck missed the handlebar fortunately, but she still couldn't move after her sweaty and tired form collapsed fully.

            The next thing she knew, she heard Goku's voice interrupt the ringing in her ears with quite suddenness.  "OK, you can take a ten minute break, then I refresh your memory on a few katas in the GEO circle."

            Willow could only groan in response and remained where she was.

            Ten minutes later, and after a light doze, Willow was picked up and cradled when it became obvious her limp body would not support itself.  "Come on," Goku said tiredly.  "This one last thing, then we can go and meet up with the others in the private Training gym.  You get to see Buffy and Xander," he teased lightly.  Willow just grunted, her eyes still sealed shut.

            Goku snorted and carried her over to the area where Buffy and Xander had been the first day of actual training.  Stopping just outside the white circle, Goku smirked to himself, and then tossed Willow to the ground.

            Surprising herself more than the Saiyan, Willow's right arm snapped out and caught herself in a brief enough hand stand to reorient her center of gravity and swing her legs around from flailing in mid-air to around so her knees were the next to hit the mat, and then completing the move and moving with her still going momentum, her other arm shot out and she flipped up and around to land gracefully on her feet facing Goku.

            Goku smiled at the sweat-soaked redhead.  "Not bad.  This should be rather easy for you now that you've got some of your energy back." He then stepped into the circle with her, and Willow briefly thought she saw the white glow a bit, but she was immediately distracted as she felt everything pressing in on her all at once again.

            "H…h-how h-h-heavy-ee is this?" Willow bit out between clenched teeth as she needed every ounce of strength to remain on her feet.

            "About 30 Gs," Goku answered.  "The average human body can handle, at most, about four to five Gs before becoming incapacitated.  10 Gs is enough to kill any but the strongest of humans.  The entire Compound, on average, is between 10 and 20 Gs, including that walkway that I led you all across your first day here."

            Willow snapped her head up in shock.  "But…how?"

            Goku shrugged.  "Maybe physics are slightly screwed in your world and what's 10 G's to the rest of the omniverse is 1 G to your world.  Or maybe it has something to do with your Powers granted immortality."  Goku paused and gave her a sly look.  "Or, maybe it is because of the physics of the Compound, even the average human is 100 times stronger than normal."

            "Why…?"

            Goku shrugged.  "There are a lot of theories, but the most prominent is because of the size of the universe of the Compound compared to every other universe out there.  Bigger universes usually mean bigger and much more energy within the very core of…well just about everything but it goes without saying that by just saying the universe.  More energy presses down upon those in bigger universes, and when all of a sudden that energy is cut by over a hundred points, or more, a person's _personal_ energy is allowed to…flex a bit more.  After all, you know that a human can leap over ten feet high on Earth's moon, but on earth barely three feet from the ground.  Their strength remains the same, but the energy of gravity affecting them has changed and therefore…"

            "They appear stronger, and in a way…are." Willow finished with a light of understanding.

            "So…" she tried to put it in a bit easier to understand terms, "…the energy of the universe suppresses our strength and personal energy just like gravity suppresses our physical strength…but I don't understand what energy has to do with it.  Personal energy or not, a human can't survive in 10 Gs, like you said and is actually incapacitated at _4_!  What's the deal?"

            Goku shrugged and nodded.  "Your physical energy is what we like to call _"Ki"_.  Spelled K-I.  Ki is an incredibly powerful tool and more impressive than anyone uninformed would otherwise guess.  Under normal circumstances, all ki does is guarantee continued life.  In fact most would just view it, untrained, as a physical manifestation of one's will.  Mothers, that when their children are in danger are suddenly as strong as an Olympic heavy-weight lifter, sprinters that suddenly catch a second wind when they put their "mind" over "matter", what I did in my demonstration, increasing what Buffy sensed as my power, as well as you and Giles.  Ki."

            "But…I don't understand…" Willow shook her head.

            Goku frowned and cupped his chin in a standing "Thinker's" pose.  "OK, let me try it like this," Goku started over and started pacing around Willow.

            "The energy of the rest of the universe continuously presses down on your personal energy, which when properly applied and even trained, can increase your physical strength in small bursts.  With me so far?"

            "But…isn't all that just…adrenaline, and-and our muscles?" Willow asked.

            Goku shook his head.  "You've undoubtedly heard stories of amazing feats of strength, and while it could be chocked up to raw muscle strength, why could they only do it then, and when they're placing just as much strain and energy into it, not be able to do so later on?  People don't casually lift thousands of pounds every day, because even in every day events, the same person that lifted a car off a trapped victim last weekend could strain to lift a box that weighs less than half of that car.  Ki, while part of it I'm sure can be shrugged off to adrenaline and all that, is _your_ energy _helping_ your muscles do the work."

            Willow frowned, trying to understand this sudden new, and radical concept.  "In heavier gravities, you can't run very fast or jump very high, can you?"  Goku asked.

            Willow looked up at him and answered, "No, ofcourse I can't.  Wh—"

            "If the gravity just keeps getting heavier and heavier…do you get any stronger?"

            Willow frowned, not sure where this was going.  "No, you get weaker."

            "But if you have time to recuperate from between the increases in gravity, and slowly got used to it, and did the same each time the gravity increased, would you be stronger or weaker when all of a sudden the gravity was back to what it used to be, what you called "normal"?"

            Willow frowned and thought about it.  "Well…when you put it like that, and you're actually given the time needed for your body to adapt, as much as it can, to the higher gravities, then yeah, you'll be a lot stronger when it goes back to normal.  So that's why we're doing the gravity training, but what does this have to do with ki?"

            "How much stronger, after having spent so much time in a universe so full of energy you can't even feel your own, is your ki when it is suddenly in a place with hundreds, if not thousands of levels of energy less than what you've lived your whole life in?"

            Willow frowned again in thought.  "It…would probably be like outer space almost, except with still some sense of direction that is.  And…well, we can fly in outer space…so, our…ki must experience the same kind of release, where it can almost fly after being grounded for so long."

            Goku smiled at her and nodded.  "And where ki had to be tapped with great strain and mistaken for raw strength before, now it increases your physical strength automatically and makes you the equivalent of super strong with no strain whatsoever."

            Willow blinked.  "Wow." She muttered as the full implication struck her.  "But wait, I still don't understand how this…ki…can be used to make us super strong, enough to treat 10Gs like 2!"

            Goku took a deep breath and let out a low sigh.  "Uh…ok.  Energy.  Gravity is energy, you understand that, right?"

            Willow nodded.  "Electricity, the sun, the movements of planets, heat, all of that is energy that you understand, right?"  Again she nodded.

            "The energy given off by all living creatures, interacts with all other energy, same as all other energy reacts with everything else.  If you heat a wire, electricity can't run through it, if you stop the movement of a planet then the radiation of the sun will cook whatever is on the surface in a matter of days.  One energy often interferes or blocks another energy, lessening or preventing that energy from reaching its full potential.  The energy of your universe does that to the living beings of yours and every planet in it."

            "So…what?  You're saying that my energy can cook a planet or power a light bulb?" Willow asked trying to comprehend.

            Goku laughed.  "Probably that latter one, but eventually…probably the former.  But the point is, your energy is capable of increasing the strength of your body, and so much more.  I'll be showing you how to do all of that, and the others."

            "Which is why, starting tomorrow, I will begin teaching you all _how_ to train your ki, and that way, when you go back to your world, where the energy is so much greater, it will allow your ki to gain even more strength because you will be working it against so much pressure.  Kinda like learning strength training on the moon, and then going back to Earth and while with less impressive results than you had on the moon, you are more fit and have a bit more strength than you did when you left." Goku explained happily.

            Willow nodded, fully understanding now.  "So…why are you telling me this now, rather than all of us tomorrow?"

            Goku just grinned at her and Willow just sighed and hung her head, answering her own question, "Because I'm going to need the most work out of everybody, and the sooner I get started, the less work I'll have to put in catching up.  Gotcha."

            Goku nodded and got into a beginner's Tai Chi pose.  "This should seem familiar, even without the implanted knowledge.  These techniques allow you to feel your own energy, and once you are fully aware of it, it's just a matter of simple steps to learning how to manipulate your energy."

            "But—" Willow tried to point something out as she got into the identical pose to mirror Goku.

            Goku shook his head at what Willow was going to say before she'd even said it.  "Ki training is different than magic, and most definitely different from magic senses.  Both might use the same type, or even the identical energy, but source and use are very rarely ever the same thing.  Very rarely.  Now, just focus on your breathing, and feel each movement of your body," Goku guided as they began the exercise.

            "Good…good.  Breathe in…out…breathe in…out…" Goku guided and Willow focused on her breathing, letting her body move of its own accord as she felt each movement.  It wasn't long until she felt as though she could feel the very energy behind each of those movements.

_*                       *                       *_

            Rupert Giles was in the private Training gym, currently doing nothing but sitting cross-legged in the center of the room with his obsidian blade lain across his knees.  And it truly was his.  The Blade had chosen him, and he had willingly given a portion of himself in exchange for that right of ownership…and so much more.

            The…"relationship" Giles now found himself in was extraordinarily complicated.  The Nightblade, which Giles could tell while entirely sexless, still tended to favor a male similar personality for itself, was fully sentient and therefore quite an experience in dealing with.  Also, the obsidian mystic blade did not communicate to Giles in words, but rather _thoughts_, which the Watcher found incredibly more rewarding than hours long of proper English speak.

            Words were used to _convey_ thoughts, not form them.  So when Nightblade spoke with Giles, it was in images, concepts, emotions, some words, but more often than not half-formed impulses rather than carefully laid out ideas and speeches.

            Nightblade itself, (The power blade had explained to Giles that while it was male-like, it was also no more than an object, a weapon, and in proper speech that was defined as 'it'.), was an incredible entity, even without its superb abilities, or its enormous power.  Like all of the sentient Blades, Nightblade was a warrior personality, but because of its name, it cloaked itself in shadow and darkness.  While Nightblade was more than willing in sharing its secrets to train Giles further…things of a personal nature, such as when Giles asked if the blade had had any previous bearers, were either ignored or told were not important and forgotten after a flash of slight anger.  If Giles had to choose one word to describe his new "partner", it would be this; Batman.

            Which would, going with the analogy, make Giles either Alfred or Robin.  Giles, despite knowing the stereotype, chose to see himself as more of an Alfred, and did his best to do his best with Nightblade, both in training…and listening to it.

            Sometimes, when they had meditated and their minds joined as one, (easier to let knowledge flow from one to the other), Giles would catch images that he _knew_ were not his own.  In fact the seemed more like dream remnants, or buried memories even.  One image in particular was repeated enough times that Giles began to recognize it, though very few of the others.

            The image was of a warrior.  A woman with long dark black hair and hazy blue eyes.  Often, she was seen wearing the same outfit that Buffy now wore, and smiling against a bright blue-sky background.  Images that included her shown her wielding an obsidian blade and doing _tremendous_ damage with it and performing flawlessly in battles of insurmountable odds.

            Whenever Giles tried to ask Nightblade about the images, the Blade would just apologize and say that it was not important.  Giles refused to believe that, but there was precious little that he could do, other than wait patiently for his partner to come to him with the truth.

            _:You're distracted:_ Nightblade "told" him.

            _'Ofcourse I'm distracted!'_ Giles snapped back.  _'You won't tell me anything about yourself, and the only thing I'm getting from our meditating are the images that _you_ won't tell me about!'_

            Nightblade took pause, considering, before responding to Giles' statement.

            _:She was my first wielder.  The first to successfully do so.  She was a vampire Slayer, and a powerful warrior.  She is also how I came to the _Compound_:_

            Giles recognized that Nightblade always used a different tone than with any other thought whenever the Compound came up.  And that was one of the things that Giles did _not_ want to know about.  Because it was not a particularly good tone.

            _'She died in the Tournament.'_ Giles stated, sensing the truth.

            _:Yes:_

            Giles, in his mind, nodded his understanding.  _'You loved her.'_

            _:You love Buffy.  It is the same:_

            Giles blinked…and a barrier than neither had understood or even recognized as being there suddenly fell away.  They both understood the other just a little bit better…and had admitted the one thing to the other that they had not even admitted to themselves.  Nightblade, his guilt over failing his first wielder in her battles at the Tournament, or not doing enough really.  And Giles, and his feelings for Buffy.  His _paternal_ feelings for Buffy.

            _:They run deeper than that:_

            _'You didn't fail her.  She wouldn't want you to blame yourself.  You are only a weapon.  She was the wielder.'_

            _:You respect her as a father would, but you also have deeper feelings of love, passionate love, for her.  And I held back on her… :_

Giles was silent for a moment, absorbing the jibes they had taken at each other and then replied with, _'I…do have feelings for Buffy.  But they cannot evolve.  I will not allow them to.  She means too much to me…to the world and so many others, for me to be selfish.  And despite it all, I don't want to lose her respect in me.  Respect as a daughter would have for a father.'_

            Nightblade was then silent.  Until finally;

            _:I did not allow her to know…to learn, my ultimate power.  It is too dangerous to be used lightly.  It is a level of power that only 10 of the power Blades have, and almost all of them refuse to allow their wielders to even learn _of_ it:_

            _'Why?'_ was Giles only response.

            _:It is a level of power ever held only by 12 individuals and their leader.  _Pure_ destruction.  No trace, no atom left of the enemy.  The technique is dangerous to both the Blade and the wielder, but because of our construction, we cannot reach the level of power that these 12 had, but the attack itself is enough.  For it can kill even gods:_

            _'Gods?  You…this technique can kill _gods?!' Giles was in shock.

            _:That is what makes it so dangerous and why _only_ these twelve individuals have _ever_ had this technique and its full power.  The 10 Blades that carry this technique, myself included, are only _copies_ and rudimentary copies at best, of it.  There are other, just as deadly or even more powerful techniques, attacks, or powers that the remaining Blades have that we 10 do not.  Giles.  Wielder.  I.  Will.  _Not_ reveal to you this attack:_

_            'But…?'_ Giles was confused now.

            _:No.  It is too powerful.  And it is not something that I can change about myself.  Or you.  If you were to even _learn_ this technique, you would die.  Not even the _Powers_ could save you.  You are too weak.  However:_

            _'To quote Buffy, "I knew there was a but,"_ Giles thought wryly.

            _:However, just because I cannot allow you to use this, does not mean I will not teach you the rest of my power.  At your current condition…you can handle only 7% of my full power.  Which is quite impressive, but in order to be of the best use to you, I must get you up to at least 39% by the end of these six training weeks:_

_            'Ah, I…see,'_ Giles replied slowly.

            _:You will soon:_

_*                       *                       *_

            Xander was having the worst day yet.  And what made it worse, was that he knew they were only going to _get worse_!  After he had finished in the exercise room, Goku had taken him to the carnival-punching power measuring thing, where he had gotten a "_Who let the dogs out? Bark. Bark!_"  Needless to say, Xander was a bit annoyed at that.

            Then he had taken Goku's suggestions at finishing up Second Training…and actually managed to get through all the hellish underwater tests the fish from Hell's oceans decided to give him.  Part of what had made him come was that Goku had mentioned that Buffy had already come here when she had finished earlier, but he never once saw her, until they finally let him go from the tests and he made for the closest MTC for an outside port so he could go to the Movable Mess for lunch.

            The Mess, despite being a hovering and very much mobile restaurant, also despite its name, was about as big as anything in the Compound.  It was, however, only a "single story" restaurant, and the inside was patterned very much after most high school cafeterias save that it was large enough to accommodate over two hundred beings of numerous and even more various sizes.  Most of them big, bigger, or not big enough.

            Xander, having come with Buffy the other day when she had earned herself a record by beating four cretins and a couple demons in _arm wrestling_ of all bar-sports, knew his way around well enough now, and knew who to avoid and the like.  Unfortunately, because of his affiliation with both Buffy and Goku, some people (using the term loosely) not only didn't avoid him, but also sought him out.

            "X!  X man!  Wait up!" a high-pitched whiny sort of voice suddenly crowed as Xander picked up his PADD from the line.

            Xander paused for just a moment before realization washed over him and he sighed, rolling his eyes as he continued to a free table.  Hopefully one with only one seat.

            "X!  X!  X!" the voice continued to call out until finally the owner managed to get through the line and raced over to Xander as fast as it could.

            "Hey man, what's the rush?  Meeting up with Slayer or something?" a short alien, not even four feet high, with pale blue skin and ruby red irises in too-large eyes, and a black ensemble of shirt and pants, started jumping alongside Xander as he walked, searching for an empty spot.

            "No Kramer, I'm not meeting Buffy.  She's still in Second Training or somewhere off on her own.  I just finished the testing round of Second Training, and I'd like to eat something before I go back.  First I have to find a damn seat," Xander muttered the last to himself.

            "Aw, too bad, cause Slayer's cool, she's really cool!  You know that, right?  Wha!  Look who I'm talking to!  Ofcourse you know she's cool!  You know that Freddie's catching back up to her on the list, then he'll have number one, but I'm sure Slayer will challenge him long before he ever gets close to beating her record, right, I mean she's like gotta be the strongest newbie here or something…"

            "Kramer!" Xander stopped and shouted at the smaller alien.  "I'm just trying to find a place to sit and eat.  I do not, I repeat, reemphasize, and reiterate, NOT want you talking in my ear the entire time about stuff I don't give shit about!  And don't call me that.  The only people that call me Warrior X is Technicians, Doctors…and whoever the hell my opponent would be in the Tournament.  My _name_ is Xander."

            That said, Xander stood back up and resumed searching for a table.  He soon found one, Kramer following after him.  "Sure thing," the blue alien said in much more subdued tone, "not a problem Xander."  The way that he said the name made Xander wince.  It reminded him of after he'd gotten a lecture about…well it really didn't matter with his parents.

            Looking at the alien as he sat down, Xander sighed.  He motioned at the other chair, but didn't say anything.  Kramer smiled, which meant what it meant, and sat down.  Then, while scrolling through what he had to offer on his own PADD, Xander said quietly to Kramer, "My friends sometimes call me Xan, but given my codename and all…X is OK."  Kramer's smile only grew.

            "So who's this Freddie you mentioned?" Xander asked as he sat down his PADD, having made up his mind and now just waiting for one of the robotic waiters to come by and take their order.

            Kramer, who ordered the same thing every day, didn't even pick up a PADD and answered Xander without hesitation.  "Oh he's a big nasty alien from the Uncharted Territories in the Embolic Galaxy.  A…a Luxon I think is his species name.  Very warrior bred.  His actual name is Fredalizk, but a lot of people just call him Freddie…ever since he saw a particular movie that is."

            Xander's eyebrows shot up as he picked up on the strange emphasis that Kramer had put on that last little part.  "Let me guess; Nightmare on Elm Street?" he asked with a smirk.

            Kramer just grinned widely and nodded.  Then he suddenly looked up and over Xander's shoulder.  "Oh, there he is.  The one in the red overcoat and the fancy sword on his back."

            Xander looked…and stared.  Sometimes he couldn't help it despite that he had mostly gotten used to all the bazillions of non-human entities there were in the Compound, but sometimes there were just some…where he couldn't help but stare.  The Luxon known as Freddie looked absolutely nothing like the movie character he was nicknamed after, but he was scary enough in his own right.

            He was as tall and as big as Goku, maybe a bit bigger, with…what could only be described as tentacles hanging from his head like hair would from a human.  He wore the standard humanoid black outfit, except the black jacket was replaced with a red overcoat, like Kramer said, and the sword strapped across his back was definitely _not_ a katana or anything else that could be said coming from Earth.  He also had leather straps across both his face, hands, and head which were probably as much an accessory as the wire Buffy used to keep her hair back, Xander thought.

            "Does he cheat?" Xander asked Kramer beside him.

            "Sort of," Kramer answered.  "If he were to go up against Slayer or Goku, he would, but against someone without a name for themselves…not unless it was really close.  And I mean _really_ close."

            "How?"

            "His tongue.  It's like an amphibian's, but it also contains a controllable toxin.  Species trait.  He could either knock you out or kill you.  Only advanced or seasoned fighters have the speed to dodge it though.  If you want to challenge him, you'll have to be sure to take him down as soon as you can, no holding back or last second comebacks for either of you."

            Xander nodded and quickly finished checking off what he wanted.  "Order for me will ya Kramer.  This won't take long." Xander told the alien and then stood and walked over to a board against one wall.  There was a list of fighters here and a tally sheet out from each.  It resembled the chalk boards they used in betting, save for the fact that it was a holographic screen.

            Xander walked to the panel station next to the tally board and pressed a button and announced to it, which then repeated at a louder volume over the rest of the Mess, "Warrior X, entering on challenge against…Fredalizk, or Freddie if he really likes that nickname.  'Cept he looks more like a Squid-head than Freddie Krueger."

            All noise, as was common when such challenges were made, stopped and the challenged Luxon stood up and looked at his new opponent.  Then the alien smiled and laughed.  Xander grinned back and let go of the button as his name appeared on the board, right beneath Freddie's.

            Both fighters made their way to the "official" table used for such activities, and were ensured to be entirely neutral by the bots and everyone else in the Movable Mess.  A crowd, as always whenever a match took place, had already gathered as the human and Luxon took their places on opposite sides.

            Freddie, for intimidation purposes, slowly took off his sword, and the red overcoat, which Xander could tell, once it was off, was indeed GEO enhanced.  Freddie, probably even more so than normal Luxons, was a big creature.  Especially in muscle mass.

            Leather straps ran up and down his arms, connecting to the gloves on his hands, and there were two, what looked like ring-piercings coming straight out of his chest, like they had been pierced through a couple of his ribs.  Xander tried very hard not to be impressed, aka scared out of his wits.

            Warrior X, for much less than an intimidating factor and more for a comfort factor, took off his own GEO-jacket, showing some surprising growth since he had first come to the Compound.

            Both sat down and faced each other for a moment, right arms on the table.

            A Ref-Bot, (Referee Robot) similar to the waiter-bots except for wearing a black and white vertical striped shirt like a Football referee, came up to the table and Freddie and Xander raised their arms.  Their hands enclosed the other and contracted as tightly as they could get them.  The Ref-Bot held the clasped hands together with his own limbs and a countdown appeared on his screen.

            Xander felt like his hand was being slowly ground into fossil fuel, and he wasn't even sure if he was giving as much as he got, but judging by Freddie's face, he wasn't.  Then, the countdown reached zero.

            That was when it happened.  Side effect number one; Hyena/Xander does _not_ like to lose, and does everything to win.  Even playing dirty.

            Audibly growling, Xander's eyes, staring straight into the Luxon's, glowed a vivid amber color, and his grip, using a bit of innate knowledge and dumb luck at the same time, tripled in intensity and pressed down, _hard_, on a particular pressure point that naturally cut a Luxon's strength by half when pressed hard enough.

            Freddie grunted and despite his intimidating beginning, he almost lost the match right there, as Xander's suddenly three-fold grip started to lean on his arm, forcing it back.  It only took a couple of moments, enough for Xander to get the lead, but Freddie finally managed to work past the pain of Xander's grip and reorient his strength to start working it back against the human.

            What really shocked the alien was that no matter how much of his strength he forced out now, he couldn't budge against Xander's arm.  The human now had the leverage, and he was working that to every advantage that he could.

            Xander's eyes flashed amber once again, and almost as if on cue, his strength increased again and Freddie's arm dropped another centimeter.  Xander hadn't stopped growling since starting, and by now it was loud enough to be heard over the cheering, shouting, and all-around general ruckus of the Mess.  What was really disturbing was that the growl didn't sound like anything human.  Or like any of the large number of alien races present.  It sounded evil.

            Freddie, despite being a warrior for all of his life, and already passed two weeks of Training, began to be afraid of this human who hadn't yet finished his first week.  The rumors he had heard about Goku and his training sessions with the humans didn't help in his confidence either.  Slowly, centimeter-by-centimeter, Freddie lost his confidence…and the match.

            When the tone indicating Xander as the winner finally buzzed, Xander did not let go of Freddie's arm.  In fact, it was almost like he was trying to drill the alien's bones into the table!  Finally, Xander's growl reached a climax…and he laughed as he released Freddie, who immediately cradled his arm, and got up, still laughing like a hyena.  A very satisfied hyena.

            Xander left the Mess after finishing his meal, not aware of the presence that was watching him, and had been ever since his victory over the Luxon.

            "Very interesting," the old man said in a high pitched, yet whiny voice.  "I must do research.  One more thing, CHECK!"

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Who is this old guy watching Xander?  What does he want with Warrior X?  Is Xander's Hyena half getting out of control?

What about Willow and Buffy's moment of indiscretion?  What will become of it?  Is their friendship over, or is it just evolving into something more?

Who was the previous wielder of Nightblade?  Why is it so protective of its own past?

And what will become of Buffy's 'secret' late night training sessions?  _Will_ she be able to surpass all doubt and become stronger than Goku?

The answers to these questions and _more_ in the next, upcoming chapter; **The Six Weeks**


	5. The Six Weeks

**Champions Of The Universe:******

**_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_**

_Disclaimer:_           In no way do I own any of these characters, or their histories, except of course for the Powers, the Compound, and the character of Goku, though DEFINITELY NOT his history or name.  All characters and stuff with the television show _"Buffy the Vampire Slayer"_ belong to creator Joss Whedon, and his production companies Mutant/Enemy.  Everything that is Dragon Ball Z belongs to the original creator, and is distributed in America by FUNimation© Productions via Cartoon Network.  This is entirely a work of fiction, and in no way do I promote or believe any of the things within here written, nor do I stand to make any sort of profit. 

AN:  Now remember!  The latest part is after a long line of asterisks that probably goes across half or most of the page.

**The Six Weeks:**

_Second Week:_

After a full week, and a bunch of other stuff, the Slayer Team, as they learned they were being called simply because of the Team Leader, finally got used to the routine of everything and the next morning they were actually meeting Goku in the private Training Gym rather than having him wake them up.  Unfortunately, the breakfasts had stayed the same, the 'specialized' meals they'd had that first day never to be repeated as far as the humans knew.

Buffy had spent another late night training session in here last night, but had made sure to check that she wouldn't bump into Willow or anyone else by checking in with each of them before she left, saying she was going for a walk.  "Just around" was her reply to Giles when he asked for clarification.

She had kept the levels the exact same as her first late night session and to her own surprise, she was remarkably less marred when she returned…an hour later than she had the first night.

At the moment, she had adjusted her GEO suit, the jacket and boots, to put her in the same as 30 Gs…coupled with Goku setting the room to the same level, she was standing in over 60 Gs, and while she felt heavy, she was not yet sweating.  Hopefully, Goku's exercise whatever it would be would allow her to cover if she did begin to sweat.

Willow, thanks both to Goku's hint and the very helpful tutoring the night before, knew what was coming and was ready for it.  Finally.  The two had worked from yesterday's morning session until a few hours before midnight.  Unfortunately, just as she got back to the apartment, Buffy brushed by her saying she was going for a walk.  She had been hoping to discuss…things with her friend.

Giles was surprised when Nightblade had informed him that no meditation would be required today, and that the Blade insisted on Giles attending Goku's training session today.  Not that the Watcher had grown so accustomed to his weapon to be shocked by this, but it was surprising given the previous, however brief, encounters with it.

Xander was just restless.

"All right," Goku finally spoke after the warm-up stretches had been completed, "something new today.  Something…I think you will all like equally.  That is if you can get it by today.  Most can't get it on the first day, so don't be frustrated if you don't get it instantly, just work harder at it and you might _finish_ the lessons before whoever might be a natural."

"Like you?" Xander sarcastically remarked.  Goku just shrugged and smiled.

"For…rather apparent reasons, I've already drilled Willow in what I'm about to teach all of you.  This."  And with that and no more warning than that, Goku, in a flash of a white/gold ki flame, powered up to his max below Super Saiyan.

Every single one of them, Willow included, staggered back as the energy assaulted their new senses.  Xander, who had only been able to _barely_ sense the huge powers before, suddenly found himself, with his new spirit powers granted with his fusion with the Hyena, extremely more sensitive to energy spikes.

Buffy was a bit too preoccupied with her gut clenching in severe pain at first, but she quickly got over it as she realized what Goku had just told them.  "Wait a sec…you mean we get to learn how to use our energy?  Like you did that first day?"  Goku smiled a bit wider and simply nodded.  "Very cool." Buffy declared.

"All right, before you get into lecture format, let me try something here," Buffy asked.  Curious, Goku just shrugged and motioned for her to go ahead.

Buffy got into a modified Horse stance, mimicking as close as she could the pose that Goku had held over a week before during the demonstration.  Slowly, she focused herself inward, until, using her power sense she felt her _own_ power.  Interestingly, she found that she could feel what her "max level" was, but only on a guess and with no way to measure it she wasn't sure exactly what that level was or could do.

Then, utilizing what she had learned so far, she tried to raise her power level, both tensing her muscles and relaxing them at the same time.  Her senses told her that she had raised her power a fraction, but that was not what she wished.  Then she recalled the few other times her power had risen of its own accord.  Sword fighting with Giles, fighting with Xander, even in her own private training, she had felt her power raise just in response to maintaining her body enough to just survive.

Then she suddenly found the key, no pun intended.  Closing her eyes, measuring her breathing, Buffy tapped a power that few Slayers before had even glimpsed.  The air around the blonde's body began to shimmer slightly, like heat waves coming off the road in a summer heat.  Goku arched one eyebrow, clearly impressed, until something even he didn't expect happened.

"AHHHHHHH!" Slayer suddenly screamed out loud and a barely visible at first and then slowly more consistent _ki flame_ flashed around her.

The clear white flame wavered for only a moment before it got continuously more and more intense as Slayer's power continued to rise.  But that wasn't what surprised Goku.  What surprised him was that Slayer actually lifted three inches off the floor in the midst of her power-up before gently setting back down, the flame dancing evenly and regularly around her now.

"Oh gawd…" Buffy muttered as she stared at what she had just done with only one try.  She looked at her arms and body, surrounded by the flame; she was a mightily impressive sight.

"How…how did you do that?" Goku had to ask.

Buffy looked up at their trainer and then back at herself.  She calmed her intense anger, but kept her power the same and watched as the ki flame dispersed, but her power did indeed remain unchanged from its current level.

"I…I-I'm not really sure," Buffy admitted, as surprised as everyone else in the room.  She clenched her fists and triggered the ki flame again, just by a simple thought, similar as the one that told her arm to clench her fist.  If she didn't know any better, she'd have to say that her body was almost _built_ for this kind of power.  And considering all the things she had learned about her Slayer powers over the past week, that might actually be true.

"I've been able to sense powers since you taught me how to use my Slayer sense that way, during our "tour"?  It, just seemed kinda logical like that I would be able to sense my own along with others.  I've, kinda notice it spike several times since then, but I've never done anything like this," she indicated the flame still around her, "before.  I just, remembering what triggered it the last few times, used that and sensed out what my power was actually like.  Then I-I tapped into it.  It was kinda like getting my second and third winds all at once, and really reaching down deep for some serious strength.  I…it's kinda hard to explain."

"No kidding," Goku muttered before going back to "lecture format" as Buffy had called it.

"Don't worry, it's not a bad thing Buffy.  If anything it's great!  You work with Giles and I'll work with Xander and Willow…"

"Hold on!" Slayer demanded, silencing the trainer.

"Just because I _did_ this-this _power-up_, does not mean I know how to teach somebody else how to do it!  Heck, I'm still trying to figure out how I did it so I can explain it to _myself_.  So until I'm shooting beams at you and stopping them as well, you're "taking" _all_ of us!" Slayer put her foot down, literally, sending a small tremor through the room.

Goku stared a bit more intently at her, but Slayer didn't back off for a second, her power evident and the flame growing agitated.  Finally Goku nodded, a thoughtful look on his face.  "Very well," he said finally.  "We'll start where I began with Willow.  Slayer, would you mind powering down now?"

She just nodded and calmed herself totally, the transparent white flame disappearing and her power going back down to "normal".  Goku just nodded back and resumed his position before the line of four warriors.

"Now, we'll begin with the Tai Chi exercises.  All of them Xander.  I'm sure all of you can easily recall them by now.  First, I'll explain the concept, and a possible theory on Buffy's advancement, of _ki_…"

_*                       *                       *_

            Several hours later, Buffy and Willow, having already _found_ their energies, were in direct tutelage under Goku while the two men stayed back, going through every move of Tai Chi until they could figure out how to sense and raise their power levels to a noticeable degree.

            "All right Willow, show Buffy what we found out last night," Goku said with a small degree of pride in his voice.  Willow also shown with pride as she got into a simple ready position and just like that, a ki flame of similar make-up to the one Buffy had produced flash-appeared and the Mage's power level rose to a surprising level.

            Buffy blinked in surprise, and across the room, the two men briefly paused to stare in awe and wonder.  "Wow Wills, that's amazing!  I had no idea your power was so strong!" Buffy exclaimed.

            The Mage just shrugged before dropping the flame, her power remaining as it was.  "I'm not as powerful as you though Buffy.  That's pretty obvious, and just from your first try!"

            "Yeah, but it took me like a whole minute to even figure out how to power up and then like a whole other one to get to my max!  You just powered up to an impressive level in a single second!" Slayer defended her friend.

            Mage just smiled back gratefully.

            "Shall we show her exactly what this new ability can _really_ do Willow?" Goku asked not without a small tone of mischief.

            The Mage got an almost evil grin on her face as she contemplated what the trainer was suggesting and she turned a questioning look at the Slayer.  Buffy just shrugged and got into the ready stance Goku had shown them, and then, in under thirty seconds because she knew exactly what to do now, her power shot to her max and she returned Goku and Willow's smirks right back at them.

            "I think I'll wait until Willow here softens you up Slayer," Goku said, again with that hint of mischief in his voice.  Then he stepped back and the Mage got into the identical pose Slayer was in, both their ki flames bright and unwavering.

            "Are you ready for this Will?" Buffy asked her best friend.

            "Lets try not to kill each other, but yeah Buff, I'm ready." Willow answered back with her resolve face on.  Buffy nodded back, and the sparring match began.

            The white, iridescent ki flames shown brightly and steadily around the two, and then all of a sudden it was like two stars in the heavens decided to duke it out and continuously slammed into each other like two raging bulls.

            Buffy moved first, flashing forward faster than even she expected, with a straight forward kick that would either knock Willow back against the far wall, or cut her in half.  Much to Buffy's surprise, neither was the case as Willow moved faster than even Buffy herself had just moved, back-flipping and then jumping up, _in over 30 G's_!  And sent a flying roundhouse kick directly at Buffy's head.

            Too surprised by the Mage's actions, Slayer was hit full force with the kick and knocked back several feet and flat on her butt.  Getting up quickly, but rubbing her sore jaw, Slayer smirked at the redhead Mage.  "Not bad.  So, think you've got Slayer strength now?  You ain't seen nuthin yet."

            That said, Slayer again launched herself at the Mage, but rather than run right into her, she tapped her well of martial arts knowledge, as did the Mage, and soon the two were sparring in the most lethal combinations and moves.  Style and form was cast aside for the most basic and accurate moves that could be performed, and yet it didn't matter because on skill alone, which was based on the downloaded martial arts knowledge, both fighters were completely even and they basically just canceled each other out, neither landing a solid or full force hit after the one Mage surprise-landed on Slayer.

            Finally, the two broke apart, slightly out of breath, ki flames shining brightly.  _'Damn, how the hell did Will get so strong?'_ Buffy thought to herself in the momentary breather.  _'Time for the first lesson Buffy,'_ Willow thought with glee, charging her power as much as she could.  Mage's ki flame suddenly intensified.  Slayer grimaced and tensed in her guard position, ready for anything.

            In the next moment, Mage suddenly disappeared in a flash of movement, startling the two men on the sidelines.  Slayer didn't jump however.  She stayed perfectly still, her eyes darting all around the room, tensed and ready to spring at a moment's movement.

            Goku was just standing off to the side, watching the events with a smile on his face, his eyes resting solely on Slayer.  Slayer wasn't moving, just standing there, her eyes darting all over the room, almost as though following some high speed unseen object.  Mage was still "invisible".

            In less than a single second, that all changed.  Slayer's eyes suddenly stopped moving, and narrowed as she seemed to focus down on something, and then faster than the men could see her perform the move, she lashed out with her right arm in a clothes line move, and the moment she did, _Mage_ was caught on it and knocked back to the ground.

            After she got up, coughing, Mage asked the blonde, "Howcough-cough-coughdid you seecoughme?"

            Slayer just shrugged and smiled at her red haired friend.  "I didn't.  I sensed you."  Then she got into a different martial arts pose, and waited.  Mage frowned and narrowed her own eyes and got into the opposing stance.

            "Maybe I should be the one to ask how you did that Willow," Slayer commented just before she launched into motion, on the attack against Mage.

            "It's easier than you think," Mage said, her breathing back under control and moving easily to block and dodge all of Slayer's attacks.  "You just move as fast as your ki can carry you, and don't stay still, pause, or hesitate for an instant.  Oh, and don't stay in the same place or a single line, because then you can be seen."

            "But wouldn't all that moving around," Slayer asked, trying a sweep kick that Mage back flipped over, "make a whole lot of noise, or wind even?"

            "Not if you do it right," Mage answered, trying several more roundhouses at Slayer, "And there's also the fact that I let my ki move _me_ not the other way around."

            "Really?" Slayer asked, easily blocking the kicks.

            "Buffy, look at us," Mage said while dodging a strike from the Slayer and then giving a kick in return.  "We're having a normal conversation while having a high-speed fight."

            Goku snorted loud enough for the two girls to hear him.  "You call that high-speed?  Snort! " he sarcastically commented.

            The blonde and redhead paused in their sparring to give him a combined annoyed look.  Slayer turned and looked at the Mage.  Mage turned and looked at the Slayer.

            "Should we show him "high-speed" Will?" Slayer asked.

            Mage grinned and nodded.  "Lets."

            As soon as it was said, the two teenage girls, moving faster than previously thought possible, performed every move that they had just finished, only so fast that only true masters could have performed it so.  Goku frowned when he saw the strength of the hits increase also, as a side result from both fighting at maximum power and taking out all the stops.

            Slayer punched her right fist right at Mage's head, and when it was less than a centimeter away, traveling in less time than it takes for the human eye to close in blinking, Mage's head ducked away fully.  Mage instantly retaliated with a roundhouse which left a black color streak in the air after her leg passed, Slayer jumped up to avoid it and rotated herself with her own streaking leg, aimed right at Mage's head, but the redhead barely managed to flip back in time to avoid it.

            As Goku watched, the movements of the two trainees just kept getting faster and stronger with each passing movement.  Mage was reaching physical heights of performance that would _outdo_ any and every Slayer trained by the Watcher's Council back at their home, and Slayer…  Slayer was outdoing each and every single one of Goku's expectations of her.  No, correct that, she was _destroying_ them.

            Slayer started the attack again by rapid punching Mage, her arm however looked as if it  had split and multiplied and all of her new appendages were attacking the Mage.  The redhead didn't seem to notice this optical illusion however, as her head was moving faster than the multi-limbed arm of the Slayer, just barely avoiding each fist, giving the illusion that for one second she had about nine heads.

            Before Slayer could attack again, Mage raised her left leg and started a rapid kick motion that gave her leg the same optical illusion Slayer's arms had.  Slayer, rather than avoiding, actually blocked the kicks and seemed to blur her form, as when she had on the treadmill the day before, as she successfully blocked all of Mage's strikes.

            Soon after that, both fighters moved closer in and both forms began to blur as they did away with martial arts knowledge and forms, and just started to hit the other as fast and as hard, and as effectively as they could.

            Only Goku could keep up with the movements, clearly at least, but it seemed that the fighters themselves had no clue as to how quickly they were moving, their minds so focused that they only kept up with the next move their opponent made or they made.

            Xander, from the sidelines, was only getting angrier from the display.  _He_ was supposed to be Buffy's sparring partner.  Willow was weak; she hadn't even wanted to participate in the training before.  It wasn't fair that she was suddenly Buffy's equal after he had been for so long.  Xander growled in frustration at himself and let himself get lost in the movements, focusing solely on one point of anger, of rage, of pent up fury.  Focused so deeply, Xander hardly noticed when his power began to raise and only when his movements were as blurred as the two fighters in the room did he notice that finally he could sense his own power.

            And as that happened, something within him…broke.  His fear.

            Xander suddenly grinned savagely as he understood what Buffy and Willow now understood, and he stopped the meaningless movements and turned to face the fighting duo.  He suddenly felt like pure power had been injected into his blood.  He roared, the clear ki flame bursting into existence around him.  But before he could interrupt, Goku shot forward and elbowed his face, knocking the Hyena hybrid back to the wall.

            '_Really don't need him interrupting this right now,'_ Goku thought about Xander as he flashed back to where he had been.  Giles just smiled slightly and continued with seeking his own power.

            Finally, Slayer and Mage jumped back from each other, their power still strong around them, but both were breathing heavily.

            "I don't get it," Buffy gasped as she caught her breath, "On skill, we're perfectly even, and you say I'm stronger than you, but I can't beat you.  Why?"

            "Because you aren't using your full power Buffy," Willow answered through her own gasps.  "You're still holding back.  I can tell."

            "I'm already at my max, I told you that!" Buffy shot back angrily.

            Willow shook her head.  "You're power is at it's max, yes Buffy.  But you aren't _directing_ it as you should.  You have to _focus_ your power _into_ your muscles to get the desired effect.  Like on the treadmill yesterday, you were focusing everything into your speed.  You have to do the same thing here, but not just to your speed.  Raising your power only increases the _overall_ strength of your body, but focusing it is what brings out the real power."

            Goku just nodded along with Willow's sentiments, having taught her the same lesson the night before.

            Buffy frowned as she thought on what Willow was telling her.  Obviously the Mage had already applied this principal to her own fighting, which, if she was right, did indeed mean that she was stronger.  Buffy took a deep breath and let it out slowly, doing as Willow suggested and _focusing_ her strength.  It wasn't as easy as Mage said it to be, but Buffy, somehow, knew she could do it.

            Her ki flame flared again, but this time it began to glow brighter so it was almost solid white instead of see-through.  "Let's go," Buffy monotoned.

            Goku sighed, frowning internally.  He had hoped that by pairing these two up, like Buffy and Xander those first few days, that whatever was bothering them would be settled in fighting.  It didn't seem to be working as Buffy was shutting off her emotions whenever she faced Willow as an opponent, and Willow was still struggling to pick up her own fighting style and was trying hard to not let her emotions get in the way.

            Willow, despite wanting Buffy to succeed in her goals with this, began to wish that she hadn't just given Buffy that hint, because she had a strong premonition, born of the gut, at that moment that she was about to get her ass royally kicked.  She charged her life force once more, forcing it to course faster and hotter through her muscles, raising her power as high as it possibly could go at the moment.

            Her limbs feeling like molten steel, the Mage stepped into yet another martial arts stance, this one a basic karate Tiger stance.  Slayer, her white flame shining and waving excitedly in the air around her, just got into the basic ready stance Goku had shown them their first training day.

            In the next instant, both girls disappeared in flashes of movement.  The air was very tense in the training gym for several very long minutes, only Goku's eyes the obvious movement.  Finally, after several minutes, the girls had apparently tired because they reappeared much the same they had disappeared, except they were on opposite ends of the room, Willow was panting heavily as she slowly slid down the wall to sit on the floor, while Buffy knelt in the same predicament, several feet away from the wall.

            After a couple of minutes, used to catch their breath, they managed to get back to their feet and prepared to go another round.  The ki flames had all but disappeared, no longer important as the very air seemed to speak of their strength.

            Buffy managed to get herself under control first and then noticed that Willow was still struggling to stand at all.  When the Mage finally got herself under control, Slayer got back into the same basic ready-stance.  Mage however, dropped back to her knees less than a second after that, and just after she had let out a breath and was now breathing hard once again.

            "I…(gasp)…yield…" Willow barely managed to get out, this time staying near the ground and only moving to improve her breathing status.

            The Slayer was left blinking in surprise at this but quickly accepted her friend's yield and quickly raced forward to see what the problem was.  "Geez Wills, I didn't hit you that many times," Buffy tried to joke, helping the redhead lean back and better clear her airway.

            Willow shook her head as Goku came up and knelt next to both of them.  "Not…that…" Willow gasped out between heavy breaths.  Goku put his hand on her arm.

            "It's all right, save your strength Willow, just catch your breath.  Explain afterwards." He ordered.

            Willow could only nod in her agreement.

            "That was intense," Buffy told their trainer.  "But exhausting!  I felt like dropping dead on my feet after the first two seconds!  And how come each second felt like a whole minute to me?  I could still keep track of time normally, but it was like everything was moving slower.  Except for Willow.  She was moving at normal speed."

            "Consequence of increasing your power is not only does your strength increase, but so does your speed and the rate at which your senses interpret everything.  Remember, this is your _life force_ we're talking about here that you used just now.  Most of the time it's spent in keeping you alive and from being crushed or absorbed or otherwise destroyed by the very energy of the space surrounding you." Goku explained.

            "I'm actually surprised at how strong all of you are.  Especially you Buffy.  Not everybody should be advancing as fast as you, increased workload or not.  I'll give you that my helping you with your sensing abilities definitely helped in this, but still I didn't expect you to manifest a ki flame on your very first try.  And your being able to increase your power before this…well I think I already displayed my surprise on that."

            "Yeah," Buffy smiled.  "Hey, and when do we get to go back to the Main Gym?"

            Goku shrugged.  "Whenever you want.  We only have lessons in here.  You can go there to workout whenever you want.  But like I said, heavier workload."

            "Right.  No _time_ for a workout," Buffy said sarcastically.

            "So…if I'm doing better than expected, well for all I care that's because of me being the Slayer and everything.  What about Xander and Willow?" she asked.

            "Willow also surprised me by how much raw energy she has in herself, and Xander, despite the changes his merger with the Hyena spirit inside of him, he also had a greater level of life force than is typical of the average human.  To tell you the truth, you all surprised me at how strong your base levels are."

            "That scale I had you hit the other day aside, we actually have taken a more accurate measurement of your power.  Unfortunately, the only base reading we have is a measurement taken when you were still in your home universe, and that energy is only however much is left over to be given off, after you know…"

            "Keeping us alive despite the energy of our universe trying to crush us," Buffy filled in for his pause, getting the point.  Almost.

            "So…what was our base levels…and what would they be here say…now?" Buffy asked.

            Goku shrugged.  "We'd have to measure you again to tell you _now_, but besides that most people judge their power levels as they appear in their home universe.  Here, everyone's powers are increased from what they were.  Less energy goes towards keeping you alive and therefore more is available for other uses.  Better to go by your weaker count, that way nothing can surprise you later on if your power level here outclasses a guy by only one level, but back home, he outclasses _you_ even more."

            Buffy grimaced and nodded.  Even Willow, who was slowly improving her breathing and regaining enough strength to sit on her own, showed she understood what the 1/8th Saiyan was saying.  "Point," Buffy acknowledged.

            "But as for your base power levels, you Buffy were a level 5, Willow, Giles, and Xander all level 4, the average for most humans anywhere.  And at the end of last week, here at the Compound you understand, you were level 19, Willow 12, Xander 15, and Giles 17.  But you do understand that…"

            "It's not the same levels we would be at back home," Buffy finished for him, her voice sounding like any teenagers getting a lecture from an adult.  Goku smiled humoring.

            "But until we know exactly the difference in energy amounts between your universe and the Compound, there's no way to calculate out how powerful you might be back at you home," he finished lightly.

            "That's ok, I don't mind going by your rules right now anyway.  But what all is the difference anyway?  I mean, other than struggling to lift a weightless barbell, we haven't exactly done anything 'super' other than in our training sessions with you, and that was only after the strength and 2nd Training," Buffy pointed out.

            "Tell her Goku," Willow said.  Goku only smirked and helped Willow to her feet.  She had recovered enough to stand on her own once again.

            "Tell me what?" Buffy asked the two of them.  They shared a look and finally Willow just turned and answered Buffy's question.

            "Remember how when we first got her that we all complained that it was too heavy and we were breathing really hard?" she asked.

            "Yeah?" Buffy gestured for her to continue.

            "That was because the entire Compound, on average, even those walkways, is set to about 10 times the gravity of Earth.  Or the surface, if it had a surface, of Jupiter, or to be more precise, a planet the size of Jupiter.  A normal human is crushed at 10 Gs, after being immobilized at 4 or 5.  And we treated it like 2!"

            Buffy's eyes went wide as the realization hit home.  "Whoa."

            "That's what I said," Willow commented.

            "Then triple that 'Whoa' and add an 'Oh man!'" a voice said from off to the side.  Xander, who had woken up just after Willow had collapsed, was standing just next to Giles, still trying to attain his energy, and had heard the entire conversation.

            "So even without training, or special suits, any average Joe could be Superman here?" he asked for clarification from their Trainer.

            Goku shrugged.  "Basically yeah.  And…it was found out early on that when you place beings from a higher-energy enriched universe in a place like this, they immediately burst forth with the extra power.  Everything you've been discovering for the past few days would have happened the instant you got here if it hadn't been immediately channeled right back to where it spent most of its time.  Keeping you all alive."

            "So that's why keeping the gravity extra high, instead of making us blast off and start blowing everything up, our extra energy immediately goes into our muscles to keep us from being crushed.  And we don't notice the strength-boost because the gravity is kept at a level that makes our super-charged muscles feel normal, except maybe just a bit heavier." Buffy deduced.

            Goku nodded.

            "So do I get a go now?" Xander asked after a full minute of silence.  Laughter greeted his statement and was only interrupted when finally Giles own ki-flame appeared.

_*                       *                       *_

            The next day was worse.  Not because of the training or the intensity of it, and certainly not because of the moods of the training partners, and not even because of where the specific type of training was.  It was because from wake to past-midnight, everyone's training was entirely alone.

            Buffy was told, as soon as she got out of the sonic shower, to go straight to Second Training.  Apparently the Mariner wanted to advance her underwater training some and with the surprising advancement in ki training that the Slayer had shown, Goku broke no argument and for the next two days that is what she did.

            Willow, even before Buffy went _into_ the sonic shower, had also received a call, and with _her_ advancements in her physical training, her Teachers agreed it was time to start on the _meta_-physical.  She was gone before the others had even sat down for their own breakfasts, having eaten hers on the run.

            Giles, having gotten his own lesson in ki, and successfully tapped into his, sparred several times with Xander the other afternoon.  The Hyena boy, physically speaking, was indeed stronger than the Blade warrior, but he seemed to be forgetting everything that was in his head, and Giles beat the poor boy on skill alone.  After that, it was always Giles who was knocked unconscious, Xander having learned his lesson.  And ofcourse, Giles was spending the whole day in the private Training gym to be taught by the blade.

            Which left Xander.  He thought of going either to the workout gym or even visiting the Main Gym to get in some workout time, but he blew that off thirty seconds after the idea struck him.  Instead he went directly to the Movable Mess.  Which is where his day became worse than if he'd agreed to become Goku's whipping boy.

            It started out "normal" though.  Xander, Goku having not yet explained how to fly just yet, despite assurances that it was capable for even humans to do it, took one of the flying taxis to the Movable Mess, and upon entering immediately ran into Kramer.

            "Hey X!  Can you believe you're still on the board?  Slayer's still got top position, but you're actually still on the board man!" Kramer said excitedly in his high-whine voice.

            Xander placed an unfamiliar and an uncomfortable smirk on his face and just shrugged.  "Can't say I'm that surprised Kramer," he said to the alien.  "Any news on anybody else challenging Buffy?"

            "Nah, but you got a couple people pegging you for a match," Kramer answered as they walked together to a table.  Xander didn't feel like eating, so he didn't grab a food pad.  Kramer just followed him around.

            "Kramer…what is it you do here?  I mean here at the Compound?  No offense…"

            "None taken," Kramer waved off the question and then shrugged his small shoulders as the two sat down at a lone table.  "I'm a fighter.  I'm just not a very good one.  I _used_ to be the defender of my solar system.  I was the best damn fighter pilot in the entire fleet.  I was also pretty crafty for whenever I got stranded or taken prisoner.  Had quite a few adventures before the Powers suddenly showed up.  After that…  Things changed.  Big time.  I'm no physical expert, but I'm allowed to utilize any weaponry from my universe in the Tournament.  I just have to have it with me or on me by the time my match starts.  For the small, but powerful bruisers, I use an exo-suit that I personally designed.  For the bigger ones, though not as powerful usually…"

            "Let me guess, your star fighter?" Xander cracked with the same smirk.  Kramer laughed out loud and nodded.

            "This next Tournament will only be my second one," Kramer admitted softly, causing Xander to start and stare at his diminutive friend.  Kramer caught the look.  "I know.  Why the heck do you think I leech on to people like you and Slayer?"

            "Kramer I don't think you _leech_…" Xander protested.  Kramer held up his hands.

            "All right, I _fawn_ over you.  But you guys show _real_ potential.  And you've got _Goku_ as your Trainer.  And Slayer just beat, on raw strength, over ten physically superior to human fully trained fighters last week.  I hear she's actually getting _stronger_!"

            Xander shrugged.  "Goku showed us how to tap into our life force energy today.  Our…what did he call it, oh yeah…our _ki_.  Buffy can actually make herself a _lot_ stronger now."

            Kramer shook his head.  "Not allowed in the arm-wrestling matches.  I know what you're talking about too.  Unfortunately my universe is only about five quintillion metras bigger than the whole Compound.  That may sound big, but trust me it's not.  My life force isn't strong enough to take that type of training.  Heck, my _body_ isn't!"  Then Kramer opened his jacket and showed Xander a light display that the young human couldn't understand, even with his implant.

            "I have my suit set to emit _anti-gravitons_.  I'm standing what would be 1 G to you, despite the heavier gravity of everything here."

            "But…isn't that cheating?" Xander asked, confused.

            Kramer shook his head, "My species is practically born in a weightless environment.  The average citizen would treat 1 G the same way you would 10 Gs back in your home universe."  Xander winced.  "Yeah," Kramer agreed with the sentiment.

            "So…how come we get physical training and martial arts downloaded into our brains…and you get to call on every toy out the wazoo from back home?" Xander asked, confused.

            "Do you _use_ "toys" that often back home, or before you met the Powers?" Kramer asked back in reply.

            Xander frowned and shook his head, not quite connecting the dots yet.  "No.  Actually we face off against demons and vampires, and what works best is wooden stakes, crosses, swords for decapitation, and Willow and Amy use magic, but Amy is just teaching Willow not actually helping us patrol or anything, and…" Xander stopped talking and he slapped his palm against his forehead.  Kramer, grinning, just nodded.

            "OK, never mind that then.  So…who's gunning for me in the arm-wrestling matches?" Xander changed the subject.

            "That is not important!" a loud whiny voice suddenly exclaims from directly behind Xander.  The young warrior, completely caught off-guard that someone other than Kramer would answer his question, jumped nearly half a foot off his chair.  After he calmed down enough to look who had spoken, Xander realized that the answer had been spoken in English.  A bit broken, and accented, but undeniably English.

            "What the…!  Geez man!  Don't do that!  You nearly gave me a heart attack!" Xander shouted at the old human that was standing calmly behind them.

            He was about Buffy's height, just over five feet, with spiky silver gray hair that seemed to be stuck in a permanent starfish pattern.  He looked like he was of Chinese descent and over eighty years old.  But given the fact that nearly everyone here was immortal that might be the least age that he was.  He also wore a large green kimono robe that while draped loosely on him, made his entire thinly form scream of ancient and unknown power.

            "If you could have a heart attack at such a young age then you are not taking proper care of your body!" the old man shouted as he walked up to Xander, making both fighters get to their feet from the sudden move.

            Oh yeah, Xander thought as he added to the mental description of the human, his face seemed to be set in a permanent scowl.

            "One more thing, it is rude to have a conversation with someone you have not been introduced to.  I am Master Fong of the Chi Artisans.  I have retired here to the Compound since on my homeworld I am considered to be dead.  Now who are you?" the old man, Master Fong, snapped.

            Xander blinked for a couple seconds as he tried to catch up with what was going on.  Deciding to play along, Xander just gave the old guy his name, "I'm…_War_-erhrm-Warrior X.  My friends call me Xander.  Uh listen old guy, I don't know…"

            "My name is not "old guy", it is Master Fong.  Learn it well.  One more thing, _you_ are the farthest thing there is to a "warrior".  I will call you…LaVelle.  One more thing, be here in one hour."  And with that, the Chi Wizard pressed a folded leaf into Xander's hand and then turned and quickly walked away.

            Xander stared after the old guy for half a minute until he was gone from sight and finally looked down to see the leaf in his hand.  He was surprised to see a symbol drawn on it.  All of a sudden, a draft from either the wind outside or an air conditioner picked the leaf up and blew it outside.  Xander was just confused.

            When the young human looked at his friend, Kramer had as close as his species could get to a look of complete and total shock.  "Kramer?  You OK?  Who was that old coot anyhow?"

            The look of anger and accusation that Kramer shot at him only served to confuse him more.  "Are you absolutely out of your mind!  That was Master Fong!  He is the greatest good Chi Wizard in the Compound!!  He was approached by the Powers over thirty years ago, and he triumphed every time he ever entered the Tournament!  Between him, Goku, and if any of the Arch Mages ever entered, Good would be undefeatable, no matter what Evil has on their side!"

            "So why isn't he?  Come to think of it, why isn't everybody here involved with the Tournament?" Xander asked.

            Kramer shrugged.  "Because if even one of them did, then victory is guaranteed.  No matter what.  This isn't like a sport Xander.  This is actually a lot more like "Rich man's wrestling".  The ones with all the power make the bets, place the stakes, and even set up the fighting arena, while everyone under their payroll fights, there are "returning champions" that don't have to fight because they have too much respect, and have paid all their debts.  Goku, Master Fong, the Arch Mages, and quite a few others are those "returning champions".  And the ones with all the power are the Powers."

            Xander stared for a second, absorbing what Kramer had just told him.

            "What's this got to do with this Master Fong giving me a leaf then?" Xander asked loudly, more to be heard over the noise of the Mess than anger.

            Several people nearby stopped and stared at Xander until he noticed and almost growled at them, "What?!"

            They quickly moved on.  "X…you have to go," Kramer said almost urgently.

            "What?  Goku just gave me a free day, I can go where I like," Xander said indignantly.

            "No, that's not what I meant," Kramer said.  "You have to go to the Temple.  The Temple where Chi magick is taught.  That leaf, if I saw right, was the same as a business card.  Master Fong wants you to be his student!"

            Pure silence, except for the engines, surrounded Xander and Kramer.  Everyone was looking at them.  Xander was too shocked to growl at any of them.  Then he shook off his shock.

            "I've already got a Trainer, and I'm not too apt on switching before I'm even done learning from the first one.  Besides, Willow is the one that's studying magick, which by the way, magic and I do not work well together.  In fact we have a restraining order against each other.  I should know after this love spell I had Amy work on me, that's Willow's magic teacher back home, totally backfired.  Instead of getting Buffy to fall in love with me, I had the rest of Sunnydale.  Men _and_ women!  No way am I going anywhere near this temple to learn any _type_ of magick!"

_*                       *                       *_

            "What the hell am I doing here?" Xander muttered to himself as he stared up at what he assumed was the Temple where Chi magicks were taught.  It was two things, first what he expected it to be, since the old guy that had approached him was obviously Chinese, and second, nothing what he expected.

            The Temple, (as it will be referred to from now on), was almost an exact replica of all those old, forgotten, and cursed, Tibetan temples that Indiana Jones and Lara Croft always ended up in.  It was also brand spanking new looking, and its materials were all modern, and some not even found on Earth.  Technology was also, seemingly, allowed in the temple, such as lighting and environmental controls.

            The moment before he took the first step up to the temple though, a green leaf drifted across his vision.  He opened his hand to pluck it out of the air, but before he could, it rested itself in his open palm.  It was the same leaf the old man had given him in the Mess.

            Definitely freaked out now, Xander felt he no longer had a choice as he held onto the leaf and began to walk up the steps to the Temple.  Not sure where he was going, Xander just walked in the main entrance and stopped and waited for a while at the top of the steps before finally losing his patience and entering the Temple's large archway entrance.

            The moment that he stepped through the arches however, Xander felt a wave of vertigo sweep through him.  He couldn't identify it, or what had caused it.  He ignored the sensation and started concentrating on where to go to next.  Every direction looked the same to his impatient eyes so he just looked down at the leaf and asked it, "Don't suppose you know which way to go, huh?"

            To his immediate surprise, the gold mark on the leaf began to glow a bright emerald green color, which soon and quickly spread to the rest of the leaf and it lifted off of his hand for a second time, although it was quite obvious that this time it was not the wind.  Before Xander could faint dead away or exclaim anything beyond facial shock, the leaf was then surrounded with gold around its emerald green aura and took off like a rocket down one of the hallways.  Xander didn't even hesitate or waste any breath in telling it to wait up.  Normally he would have, but his week at the Compound had given him time to realize that people here did not wait around commenting on what was happening, they were people of action and no waiting at all.

            It also had to do with his merger with the Hyena spirit, and the animal spirit was not one to waste time when chasing down prey that had more than half a chance at getting away.  Xander didn't even notice that he had powered up the moment he started running, only that he was running as fast as he could after the leaf, and it was still pulling away from him.

            He managed several times to boost his speed, but all that did was match his speed and the leaf's until the leaf sped up again and began to pull farther ahead.

            Turning corners at max speed was also a skill that Xander was having to force himself to master as the leaf took many corners and that was usually where it managed to pull a bit farther ahead of him.  After nearly a half hour of the chase, Xander wasn't really paying attention to the time, only that he was getting better at taking the turns and the leaf was still leading on him.  It was over ten meters in front of him when it suddenly disappeared around a corner in the middle of a long passageway, impossible to identify which one by the time that Xander got to it.

            The Warrior barely hesitated, only slowing by one step as he sniffed the air, identifying the trail the leaf had left and turned down the correct passage…right into a large workshop area.

            Workshop was too nice a word actually, as Xander found himself stopped from more than just shock.  Voodoo temples and devil alters were less cluttered and creepy than this place with all of its many ingredients, pots, potions, animals, animal skins, animal parts, plants, and so many other things that Xander's head began to spin.

            At the center of it however was the old Chinese man in a white over robe with a gray kimono underneath, highlighted with a red cloak/cape draped from his shoulders, and small spectacles on the end of his nose.  His balding silver gray hair was wild, similar to Goku's in that respect, but everything else about him screamed "STRICT!" that made Xander, even the Hyena-Xander, cringe and want to go running back where he came from.  The old man, Master Fong as Xander now knew him, was holding the still glowing leaf.  When Xander entered, he began to mutter something and soon after the glow stopped and the leaf crumbled to ash.

            "You are late!" Master Fong shouted, his voice accented and also used to being loud apparently.  "We must begin your lessons immediately!  One more thing.  You will not wear that ridiculous training equipment when you are with me.  One more thing, my name is Master Fong, you are Xander Harris, I will be your instructor in Chi magick.  One more thing, NO INTERUPTIONS!  Speak only when spoken too and only when I ask if you have something to say or ask.  Any questions?"

            Xander opened his mouth, his hand raised to help emphasize his statement.  "No.  Good.  We must begin.  What did I just finish telling you!  Take off that ridiculous jacket!  Now!"  Xander blinked.  Too overwhelmed, he just took off his jacket and dropped it on the floor.

            "Ai-Yah!" Master Fong exclaimed.  "Are you a barbarian?  Hang that up!"

            Xander immediately picked his GEO-jacket back up and began looking for somewhere to place it when he finally noticed the coat rack right next to the passageway he had come in from.

            "Good.  Now let us begin," Master Fong trotted over to one of the clutter filled benches.  "What do you know of herbal remedies?"

            "Uh…nothing," Xander answered, walking over to where the old man stood.

            Faster than he even saw it coming, Master Fong rapped a bony finger painfully against Xander's skull.  Painful to Xander's skull that is.  "Ow!"

            "I did not tell you to talk!  Of course you know nothing.  That is why I am here to teach you.  Now pay close attention.  You can make the following remedies with the following ingredients…"

_*                       *                       *_

            Willow was in trouble.  No doubt about it.  She had successfully performed every spell she had learned over the past week, from books, scrolls and everything else she had studied.  The spells were easy to do; she knew them inside and out.  She had also started studying other types of magic; sorcery, alchemy, wizardry, and religious magicks besides her foremost study of wicca.

What she was in trouble over was not what magics she had been studying, or how well she performed in each.  It had nothing to do with the others, or her training with the two Arch Mages opposed to Goku.

She was, apparently, in trouble because she had no control over her rapidly growing power.

"Her power has done anything _but_ go down Archer!" Amana was screaming behind her desk at the towering minotaur.

Willow, at the moment, was sitting in the corner, supposedly studying a book from Amana's library, which she had actually already read, a soundproof magical barrier around her.  It had taken four seconds to get past it without alerting Amana or Archer that she could now hear them.  Three to remember the spell, the last to perform it.

"I know that Amana," Archer replied, his rumbling voice quiet because he actually had no need to shout over Amana's screams.  His whispers did that just fine.  "But if we hold back on showing her new magics then I believe that it will stall her power growth long enough for her to learn all the necessary control."

"Archer!" the 2nd Arch Mage could hardly believe that this massive immortal beast was one of the most powerful magic-users in the omniverse.  "Her power would have grown just as fast if she only had one magic to study.  We've already given her thousands!  Her power, whether we stop feeding it or heavens forbid actually try and stunt it, _will_ continue to grow stronger.  There is nothing we can do about that!"

Archer seemed to sigh, but remained perfectly still as well.  "I know that," he whispered, "I was hoping that she could learn full control if we just let her review what she has learned rather than continue new training…"

"That won't work and you know it!" Amana snapped.  "The spells she's learned so far she could do in her sleep if she so wished!  The only think keeping her from the Power Mage level is her lack of control, and so far she just isn't powerful enough yet.  But that won't remain the case for long."

"Then what do you suggest?"

Amana was silent as her eyes glazed over as she was obviously trying to think.  Her fingers steepled in front of her when she suddenly snapped back to reality and looked her friend in the eye.

"We give her permission to use magic outside of training, and insist that Goku allow her to use whatever spells or magic she wishes to during his training.  He can teach her control over her expanding power, as well as help her to increase it enough to get to the Power Mage level."

Archer nodded, momentarily in the 'Thinker' pose.  "Yes.  I agree.  By the way, do you know that it took her less than five seconds to get past your barrier you put over her?"

Willow blushed and quickly turned back around, ignoring the two Arch Mages, as she should have been doing in the first place.  Willow felt the barrier disappear, and still blushing, she got to her feet, put the book away, and walked to Amana's desk.

Once the new mage was seated, Amana grinned as she finally answered Archer's question.  "No, actually.  I didn't even feel the breach until you pointed it out to me."

"You're getting sloppy," Archer teased.

"I must be if I cast such a low level spell that a basic learner could cast," Amana agreed, the grin still on her face.

"Didn't you say most of your pupils don't even learn that spell until after the third week?" Willow asked with a matching, confident grin on her own.

Amana looked surprised at Willow for a moment, while Archer just grinned down at the mage.  Willow all of a sudden realized what she had done.

"Oh!  My!  I mean, I, I… I'm sorry I never, I mean I, I, I…" Willow started to blubber almost, but Amana quickly put a stop to it before it got that far.

"No, no, it's all right Willow," Amana said soothingly.  "I'm actually very impressed at how much your confidence has grown over the past week.  I am glad that you are, how do they put it these days?  Oh yes, that you're coming out of your shell.  And no, that was not insulting, in fact it was a very good point, and somewhat funny as well."

Willow stopped looking like she was about to cry, and settled for her 'ready' posture, whenever she was listening raptly to a teacher.

"Unfortunately… your confidence is the whole base of Archer's and mine argument," Amana continued with a sour look on her face.

Willow frowned, more confused than hurt by what was said.

"Allow me my friend," Archer interrupted and turned to look down upon Willow.  Willow looked up, still frowning in confusion.

"Our 'problem' can be summed up in a single word little one.  Pride," was all Archer said.

Willow blinked and creased her brow to match her frown.  "Pride?" she repeated.  Archer, and even Amana nodded affirmative.  "But I…" before she said anything else, Willow immediately shut her mouth and turned her brain on, so to speak.

The old proverb, Pride goeth before a fall rang through her mind for several moments before she began to dissect exactly what it meant and what both her teachers were afraid of.  Just about all of the enemies, especially the 'Big Bads' as they called them, that the Slayerettes had fought and defeated, pride was quite often their common and in some cases _only_ weakness.  It was also what made them evil in some cases.

Amy's mother, before she got banished.  The hulking vampire they had thought was the Anointed One.  The Master.  And lately, more often than not, Spike with having the reputation of killing at least two Slayers previously.  Yet Buffy defeated them all.  Even though some of them were more powerful than her.

Two lessons could be learned from these facts, Willow decided.  The first, if you have too much pride, it can go to your head, and if you have a lot of power coupled with that pride, more often than not that person will turn up evil.  Power corrupts, but what it uses to corrupt is pride.

The second, there is always someone out there that can defeat you, whether they're more powerful than you, or less powerful than you.  So just because you won a few battles against "undefeatable opponents" doesn't mean you're all-powerful and can't be defeated yourself.

There was more that her teachers were getting at, Willow was sure, but she needed to think more before much more was said.  First though, _something_ had to be said in the first place.

"You think I'll turn evil, abuse the powers and knowledge you've given me here," Willow stated after she realized all this.

"We gave you no powers little one," Archer replied softly, "Only the knowledge in how to use what you already had."  Willow nodded her understanding.

"But we _are_ worried dear," Amana added after a pause.  Willow nodded again.

Amana sighed and rubbed her eyes.  "How did my own teacher ever tell me this lesson?" she asked aloud, though quite obviously to herself.

"I understand the problems those with power have with pride, and I also understand the consequences of mixing those two up are.  I would like to think I'm prepared enough to control myself," Willow told them.

"I don't think you understand it quite as clearly as you think Willow," Archer pointed out.  "Amana and I are your superiors, for the time.  Your friends are physically your superiors, as well as your friends.  But you have not yet, with our training, placed yourself among normal people, those with no powers whatsoever.  In effort to do good, you might get ahead of yourself and do harm to those normal people, whether in accident or on purpose for those that deserve punishment."

"But… I…I'm only supposed to protect the innocent, not punish the guilty!  That is the goddess's work!" Willow protested, saying what she truly believed about what she was beginning to think of as her religion.  She had actually learned this much here at the Compound than from Amy and her family.

"I am glad you know that, but still… accidents happen," Amana gravely replied to Willow's protest.  Willow frowned again as she considered their words.

"I… I need to think about this.  Would it be all right if we skipped today's lesson and I went on to 2nd Training?" Willow finally asked after several minutes' tense silence.

"Not at all.  I will inform them that you are on your way," Amana excused the Mage.

Willow got up and went to the MTC without another word.  It activated at her approach and she knew that it was already set for her.  Quietly, she stepped through.

_*                       *                       *_

            Buffy was submerged in a full water tank, the liquid around her, she had been told, the equivalent of her own Earth's oceans, minus pollution and shit.  She had also been holding her breath for up to five minutes before she even entered the water, and had been underwater, doing a basic kata, for at least six more.  She knew this because of a large neon clock visible through the force field holding the water back.

            The Mariner was beside her, only observing, but because he had gills, he wasn't really in any danger of drowning.  Buffy, however, was.  Not that it mattered.  Five minutes after, if she did drown, she would be back to normal, once they had pumped all the water out of her lungs that is.

            The Slayer was only just beginning to feel lightheaded, but she didn't let it distract her any.  According to test results, she had a natural ability to keep her body fully functioning for long periods of time without any oxygen.  She blamed, and all the Technicians agreed, her status as the Slayer.

            With the training she had received here however, she had learned how to increase those fifteen minutes she might have wasted precious energy and oxygen in her blood, to well over thirty, getting quite close to a full hour.  From learning how to breath right, to how to hold her breath and regulate it afterwards, and even some stuff they called 'advanced', which was only slowing down her heartbeat and her muscles need of oxygen significantly.  To her though, it was all actually simple meditation that she had learned from her Slayer training with Giles, as well as some SCUBA lessons her family had taken shortly after she turned thirteen.

            Now she was combining about three separate training arenas into one with this single exercise.  Breathing/holding breath exercises, movement through liquid exercises, and the most important, maintaining her body's fighting ability when low on oxygen.

            The kata was pretty basic, with the only hindrance being that it required her feet to stay on the ground.  Since the water around her was almost identical to Earth's oceans that also meant that it was _salt water_.  Very buoyant salt water is, very buoyant indeed.

            With almost every movement of her arms, her body seemed to want to try and float to the top, and keeping both feet on the floor of the tank certainly didn't help.  Maybe if the pressure were deeper, the gravity holding her to the floor stronger, Buffy was sure she wouldn't be having as much trouble as she was right now, but as she was already half dead with the settings on her GEO suit combined with the restrictive movement of the liquid atmosphere compared to one filled with air…

            The Slayer was in little mood for distractions, however when the first one in three days suddenly showed up, she found it very difficult to be angry at that distraction.

            She sensed Willow.  Strange how bizarre that statement would have seemed to her just a week ago, now seemed perfectly normal to her startled mind.  Startled enough that she suddenly let out a gasp of surprise, allowing several minutes worth of precious oxygen escape in a single second.

            The life force of her best friend was as clear and omni-present to the Slayer's sixth sense as Goku's first was, but definitely for different reasons.  Goku didn't even try to hold in how much power he had, though he could definitely increase it, Buffy could even now sense him, though he was several thousand miles away.

            With Willow however…  It was something else entirely.  Probably just because of the massage several nights ago and they still hadn't talked about what happened.  Not that anything _really_ happened, but Buffy knew that both their subconscious minds were telling them the same thing, that something _had_ happened… they just had no clue what exactly.

            While focusing on Willow, despite gasping and losing her air, Buffy had also frozen, stopping all movements, which apparently annoyed the Mariner, because he angrily gestured for her to continue.

            Buffy didn't really want to know what he was thinking of her right now, but nevertheless picked up where she had left off, and focused as much as she could on her current exercises.  Though a portion of her thoughts never left Willow's life signature, always keeping track of the Mage.

_*                       *                       *_

            Giles was going considerably slower than the rest of the team, and nobody was deluding themselves in saying otherwise, not even the Watcher.  And especially not his weapon that was responsible for most of his training.

            In dealing with a sentient weapon, there was always, always, _always_ a common thread in those that wielded them.  A balance between mind and body, a greater ability, either of mind _or_ body, that allowed the wielder to use the weapon to its maximum ability, and for some a greater balance between mind, body, and soul.

            With the Power Blades, this latter balance was not only a requirement, but also a necessity in even being able to use them, let alone pick them up.  The greater ability came from the Blades themselves, as they granted a portion of themselves to their wielder while taking an equal portion from the wielder.

            Physical ability, strength and skill, were the easiest for Nightblade to deal with.  It was the mind and the soul that it needed to deal with first and foremost.  But Giles was even more difficult than it could have imagined, if it were capable of imagining.

            "I… I'm not sure I understand…" Giles stuttered slightly as he stood before the Nightblade on the landscape of his mind, dressed in his usual tweed rather than the training uniform he'd received at the Compound.

            :This is the mind.  Your mind.  You control everything around us.  Through you, I can also control it.  We have already trained much here, but that training was just to build this place, so that you might see and be aware of it. :

            "This," Giles looked around at the 20x20x50 meter wood-paneled room, "is my mind?"

            :It is the representation.  Your mind is many things.  Biologically, it is housed and centralized by your brain, but it is not _just_ your brain.  Your mind extends much further than the body, and has greater control over the body than you could ever guess:

            "I understand that much, about things anyway," Giles replied.  "Yet I, don't quite understand what we are to do here?  I'm already meditating.  Is that what I do here as well?"

            :Meditating allows you access here.  Here I will show you how to control your mind and its many facets and unknown abilities.  I may also show you how to control my power, here.  But for now we will begin by answering your questions.  Once the majority of your questions have been answered, we will begin your mental training:

            "What all will I learn here?  From this mental training?"

            :How to fully control your body.  How to control your emotions, your perceptions, and your dreams.  How to keep yourself from insanity, how to block your mind from outward invasion of any force of power, and how to access my power at will.  You may not see the results right away, but in your physical training, you will:

            For the remainder of the day, Nightblade showed Giles how to control, learn from, and identify all the aspects and abilities that his 'mind realm' allowed him.  As with everything so far, Giles was slow to understand.

            Near the end of the day, Nightblade released the Watcher from his meditation, amazingly enough right as the rest of the Slayer Team were returning.  Buffy and Willow came through the MTC together, conversing about coincidences, and Xander came through about five minutes later.

            "Willow!" he exclaimed the moment he was through the red portal.  "Thank god!  Do you know anything about Chi Magick, or anyone that uses it?"

            "Huh?" she blurted at the sudden question.

            "Come on, you're our magic guru, you've gotta know somebody your training with who knows this Chi Magick shit, right?" Xander prompted again, a wild look in his eyes and actually just about everything about him.

            "Why would you think that just because it has the word magic is in it, that I would first of all know what it is, and second of all know a specific person studying it in this place?" Willow asked logically, and a bit coldly by Buffy and Xander's points of view.

            "Well…because, you're our magic guru… and you've had to have heard of this Chi Magick shit, because if I find out it doesn't actually exist, first I'm getting my head examined, then I'm gonna start busting some heads!" Xander exclaimed with punching his palm with his fist.

            Willow blinked and then rolled her eyes up in heavy thought.  "Actually… yeah, I've read several mentions of Chi Magick in the books I've read so far.  Chinese based, oriented, and created.  It deals with manipulating the life force of a person, the surrounding area, and the universe as a whole on the spiritual level.  It's sort of like the ki training Goku's giving us actually, except far more advanced.  Kinda like comparing Karate with Gang-Gong Kung Fu."  They all frowned at the unfamiliar martial arts name, but their implants quickly filled them in on the style and how the comparison fit.

            "Oh," Xander remarked depressingly, as he seemed to slump down into himself.

            "Xand?  What's wrong?" Buffy asked as they followed the slouching Warrior to the central couch.  Giles too came forward to see what was the matter.

            "This really weird old geezer called Master Fong found me in the Movable Mess, just before I was about to sit down to eat!  He gave me this weird leaf, then told me to meet him at the Temple of Chi Magicks.  Everybody else told me it would be a bad idea to refuse, and partially scared but more curious, I went.  Ten minutes after that, the geezer claims I'm his pupil and starts slapping me and saying "One more thing" a lot and then goes on and on and on about herbs this, herbs that, remedies this, remedies that!  I was about ready to kill the guy by the time he finally told me to get out of there.  I've been trying to find Goku for the past hour, but he's "Unavailable" by the Global things and nobody else knows where he is!"

            At that moment the MTC activated, and out stepped the very person Xander had been looking for.  Goku smirked and then said to Xander, "Maybe that's because he's been in a meeting for the past two hours about your new training schedule."

            "You report to Master Fong at the Temple every day from now on, same as Willow reports to the Magic Tower," Goku explained as he walked up to the group.  "And just so you know Xander, I did not at all object to this.  You were getting too complacent with your free schedule, and you haven't even gone back to 2nd Training.  I also honestly believe that Master Fong can teach you things that you need to know Xander.  You've been letting your hyena half get the better of you these past couple days, and Master Fong can help you master and control that better than I or anyone else ever could."

            "Please explain to me then, where knowing the difference between a salamander root and Wolfsbane come anywhere into helping me master controlling my temper?" Xander sarcastically snorted.

            "Your reason and need for controlling your temper are supernatural X," Goku said simply.  "Master Fong is an amazing Chi Wizard.  The only reason he's here is because of a pupil of his' destiny.  On his home world, he had to be "killed" by a Dark Chi Wizard in order for that student to reach his full potential and one-day defeat that same Dark Chi Wizard.  You can learn a lot Xander.  Willow hasn't even begun studies in Chi Magick, and when she does, she'll be learning them from the Arch Mages, who while are competent, even they'll admit that Master Fong is the absolute best at teaching Chi Magick."

            "What?!" Willow exclaimed at this news.  "Xander, let's trade!" she begged.

            "Be glad to Wills," Xander looked almost relieved, until he felt an unbreakable grip on his shoulder.  It was Goku.

            "Get your rest, because we start early tomorrow morning so you'll have enough time at the Temple tomorrow." Goku whispered into Xander's ear.  Then with a cheery, "Good night!" he turned and left the Slayer Team's apartment.

            "I hate it here," Xander announced.

            "But just the other day you were shouting about all the cool stuff we'll learn to do here," Buffy innocently pointed out.

            Xander shot her a death glare, but it only tickled her into giggles, where Willow soon joined her.  Rolling his eyes, Xander embraced his aching head and walked into his bedroom, where he spent the rest of the night.

            "OK, now that that's taken care of, I'm going for a walk.  I'll be back later guys, but don't wait up.  I can tell it's been a hellish day on all of us," Buffy said as she walked back to the MTC.

            Willow tried to call after her, but it was too late before she could as the blonde stepped through.  Willow sighed and turned to regard the only other person in the room.

            "So how was your day Giles?"

_*                       *                       *_

            Buffy was in the private training gym again, and this time she was working out in over 50 Gs, as her suit was set to the 45 g/mm the Mariner told her the bottom of Earth's oceans was like, and the room itself just over 30 g/mm3 as well as setting it to slowly increment upwards in gravity every ten minutes.  What made this particular training session unique however, was it the first one where she used her ki.

            The first few minutes, she did nothing except raise and lower her power.  She even tried to stuff her power down so she was weaker than normal, and found out an interesting little fact.  Their ki might keep them alive in higher gravities, but even without it, their muscle strength remains the same, especially after being trained in the higher gravities.  At least Buffy found this interesting.

            After that, Buffy did all of her usual exercises at normal, without raising her power any.  Once she became exhausted enough that she normally would have quit after one more exercise, she instead raised her power to her max, and did all of the exercises over again, but in longer intervals.  Then she came up with at least a half dozen more ways to test and strengthen herself and did those.  Her energy lasted throughout most of the night, and by the point of total exhaustion that she chose to quit at, she only had about three more hours before it was time to wake up again.

            Thankfully, nobody, especially not Willow, was waiting up for her as she crept into her apartment room and instantly fell asleep on the bed.

            In the morning, Goku didn't even show up, and Buffy was allowed to sleep an hour later than the rest of them.  After breakfast, which had stayed lit until Buffy finally woke up and ate, Xander was summoned back to the Temple of Chi Magicks, Giles told them he was going to the Training Gym, and both Buffy and Willow went to 2nd Training in silence.

_*                       *                       *_

            That evening once everyone had returned, Buffy was feeling exhilarated after her day and was anxious to get to her private training.  Rather than tiring or depressing her, her 2nd Training today had the total opposite effect on her.  It was like being allowed to play in the pool all day, and told that it was work you were getting paid for!  She could now hold her breath for over a half hour with extremely strenuous movements and her depth measurement took her to over 3 miles beneath an ocean's surface.

            Despite being immortal, decompression sickness isn't fun, so she spent the entire afternoon getting schooled, and training, in ways to either minimize or totally cancel that little human flaw without having to compromise on time moving from depth zone to depth zone.

            And although they hadn't been trained together, she heard that Willow had also done extremely well in her training.  Her long-breathed friend was also rumored to have the longest time underwater of anyone.  Her ability to hold it during strenuous movements however was not as spectacular.

            Xander hadn't said a word since he'd come in, only held a cold cloth to his face and lain on the couch ever since.  Of course, neither Buffy nor Willow had asked what had happened to him today, and to be totally honest, she was sure that neither of them wanted to know or wanted to ask.

            Giles showed up last, as always, and appeared to have a headache of his own to deal with, though when Buffy did ask him, he just said it was nothing and went to retrieve his evening meal from the bar.  Buffy let it go with a shrug.

            "Hey, I'm going for a walk, I'll be back late," she told them, after eating her own large meal, and started towards the MTC.  "Don't wait up, I'm not sure when I'll be back."

            If she had been looking at Willow's face at the time, she would have known immediately that she had said the wrong thing.  Although even the female Slayer would have trouble exactly identifying precisely what that wrong thing was.

            "Stop right there Slayer!" Willow's voice snapped out like a whip.

            Buffy froze at first from the shock of what had just happened, and then it slowly evolved into genuine fear, for a number of reasons.  "And just _where_ do you think you're going?" Willow asked, anger radiating off of her in waves.

            Buffy slowly turned around to look Willow in the face, absently noting the shocked looks on the men's faces, which probably mirrored her own.  "I told you, just out for a walk…" Buffy excused.

            "Where out for a walk?  Because I actually went to the arboretum and several other places you've "said" you "walk", last night.  You weren't at any of them and you hadn't been at all according to the local witnesses I asked.  I even double backed to confirm that we hadn't just missed each other.  So unless you've suddenly learned how to turn invisible on your "walks" Buffy, I'm going to bet that you haven't been "walking" at all.  Now.  Where have you been, and where are you going?"

            _'Going?'_ Buffy thought.  That meant that Willow wasn't adamantly stopping her, just concerned about where she'd been, and where she'll be.  Buffy briefly considered constructing other or more lies, since the guys were here too, but one look at Willow's resolve face immediately melted any and all thoughts of deception on Buffy's part.

            "I've been training," she finally answered.  "In the personal gym.  I've also been sealing it so that nobody else could come in and so Goku wouldn't figure out what I was doing."

            "Why would you want to hide the fact that you are training yourself, which I must admit I'm surprised and proud of you for on my part, from Goku?" Giles asked.

            Buffy gave him a look like he was the stupidest person in this universe, this universe of course being the Compound.  "Because I want to _beat_ Goku Giles!  Duh!  And if Goku knows that I'm working harder, then he'll just train us harder and he'll eventually figure out what I'm up to.  Besides, I'm already up to 50 gravitons on my GEO suit."

            Everyone started at that.

            "Uh, Buffy, I'm still on about 15 gravitons per centimeter during regular training, and I'm bushed when we get back!" Xander exclaimed.

            Buffy shrugged.  "That's because Goku keeps the gravity of the room high.  Like around 40 I think was today.  And I'm on 50 gravitons per millimeter."  They all stared dumbly at her.

            "Can I go now?" she asked Willow.

            Who immediately repositioned her resolve face and took the steps forward to be next to the Slayer.  "Only if I come with you.  I need to start working more on my physical training anyway.  Not to mention…we still need to talk," Willow added quietly.  Buffy blinked and numbly nodded her head.  Willow smiled and put away the Resolve Face.

            "Whoa.  Hold on!  Stop!" Xander shouted, getting up from his chair and walking towards the two.  The two girls just stared at him, perfectly calm and waiting for him to say his piece.

            "Can I come too?" he finally asked.  At Buffy's questioning look he added, "I haven't had a decent work out in two days!  This old coot Master Fong is driving me up the wall, and some good hardy training to let me take it out on is just what the doctor ordered.  And if Goku showed up demanding improvements, I know I wouldn't measure up.  Please?" he finally resorted to puppy dog eyes.

            Giles just cleared his throat.

            Buffy rolled her eyes.  "You know, it might just be better if you trained on your own like I have been…" she suggested, but was stopped from further argument by the reemergence of Resolve Face, Xander folding his arms and setting his face, and Giles clicking his tongue like only the British can.  She rolled her eyes again and sighed.  "Come on.  But I'm sticking with my work out.  Just because it's your first time, don't whine and complain to me like you did to Goku.  You are _more_ than welcome to leave."

            Buffy strutted, because she can't march worth a damn, to the MTC, set the coordinates and waited.  Xander and the others behind him quickly stepped through, Buffy last.

            The moment she was in the gym, Buffy opened her Global and it immediately patched to the Training gym handler, Alvin.

            "Hey Alvin, it's me.  Everything ready?"

            Everyone looked in surprise at Buffy.  She was practically mimicking Goku's personality with the way she spoke into the gray device.  What was even more surprising was that they heard and understood the person that was speaking in the same fashion to the Slayer.

            "Sure is Buffy.  All the settings are matched to last night's later settings and the usual safeguards are in place.  Uh… Buffy, I'm detecting three other people in there with you, is this…"

            "I decided to work on some team maneuvers.  That's not a problem is it?" she asked as though she knew it wouldn't be.

            "No, of course not.  But I'm setting it so only your authorization undoes the safeguards.  Is _that_ all right?" Alvin asked back.

            Buffy smiled at him and shook her head.  "Nah, that'll be fine.  Have a good night Alvin!"

            "Have a good training Slayer."  Buffy closed the Global.

            "Who was that?" Willow immediately asked.

            "You sounded very chummy with him," Xander observed.

            Buffy seemed to be developing a new habit with her friends as she rolled her eyes yet again.  "He's the regional manager.  He's in charge of the maintenance and functioning of this gym and about 49 others.  I asked for his help on making sure I wouldn't be interrupted while I trained.  Can we get started now?"

            They all nodded.

            "Fine.  Good.  Authorization Slayer!  50 gravitons per cubic millimeter!" Buffy called.  Then she opened up her Global again, chose the option 'GEO gravity levels' 'Training Gym 41' and then raised it so her "personal gravity" was just over 100 Gs.

            The others, except for Xander, were already on their knees.  Buffy told them, "You can power up you know."  Instantly, ki flames flashed around Giles and Willow and they stood straight once again, although the strain was still obvious in their bodies and faces.  Only after a long hesitation did Xander power up any at all, though not to the level that a ki flame would have manifested.

            Buffy just walked further out into the gym, rather stiffly, and once she was to a good spot, she started several katas to loosen her up and adapt to her record breaking level that she now stood at.  Moving in water and higher gravities only has the difference in that in one, you drown.  And amazingly, her body, despite being in just over 100 Gs, was handling marvelously with barely any powering up at all!

            At first the others just stared at her, waiting for something more to happen, but she stuck to her program and for the most part ignored them, except occasionally glancing their way.  Finally, Xander at the least, they all seemed to remember why they were here at all and began to mimic her, at least in loosening up.

            Xander started with that all-purpose stretch Goku taught them the first day, while Willow did a few different katas from the ones Buffy was doing.  Giles started with the stretch, and then went into something she vaguely recalled as a sword kata, more for broadsword movements than the lighter or thinner blades.

            For the next half hour, they all stretched and loosened up, until Buffy decided it was time for her exercises.  She had been planning to do some more powering-up exercises, but everyone being here kind of threw that out, so she did some basic exercises to start off.  Push-ups, sit-ups and stomach crunches, and then she started running.  She had a heavy sweat going before the first hour was through.

            At the end of that hour, the others seemed to realize they were loose enough and started their own exercises.  Willow mimicked all of the ones Buffy had done, while Xander went off on his own thing.

            Three hours into it, exercises had been done nearly to the point of exhaustion, and Buffy had set it so that the total gravity upon her was 110 Gs.  She was sure that if she weren't immortal and her healing accelerated, there would have been no way for her to have gotten this far.  It also made her nightly visits to the Clinic to _get_ her healing accelerated, worth it.

            But now she was bored, and her energy was too high to be totally exhausted.  It was time.

            While the others were still caught up in their exercises, Buffy walked resolutely away from them.  Giles and Xander dominated the center of the rectangular room, so she walked back to the far end and stopped.

            She sat down on the floor in a meditation pose (Indian style) palms up.  Then she focused all of her senses inward, closing her eyes and controlling her breathing.  She sensed her power, and her potential, though since she had nothing to compare it to it meant little to her, and what her current maximum power level was.

            In a single thought, she forced her power to that maximum level.  The thought had occurred to her during her underwater katas, that if she could learn to power to her max faster than anyone else, she would have a major advantage, the same if she could learn to push all of her power to one aspect of her skills; speed, strength, or endurance.

            In the gym, they all felt Buffy's power go up, but half a second later they all staggered and stopped what they were doing when they realized that she had just gone to her max in less than half a second.  The air compression and energy displacement from Buffy's position might have also had something to do with it.

            The blonde Slayer was actually floating about half a foot off the ground, the pure and clear ki flame shining brightly around her as she did, still sitting in her meditation pose.  It was as if her very energy were pushing the air and everything else away from her, just because it existed.  They all covered their faces with hands and fists, trying to see what their Team Leader was doing.  And wondering how they could do it themselves.  Well, at least Xander was thinking that.

            Buffy was still concentrating though.  She was trying to figure out what her senses were telling her, and identifying what it all meant.  It was almost like she was learning how to move and live all over again, using her senses and body like a baby would before it could crawl, walk, talk, or anything else for that matter.

            She tried several things with her energy, pushing it as high as she could, but not really directing it, focusing it on her muscles, which seemed to make them swell and certainly made her stronger, but not quite as fast.  Then she adjusted her thinking to focusing her power into her speed.  It helped to be running at the time, but she wanted to try it in her current position.  It took a while but she did, successfully, figure it out.

            Then, as she was looking where to focus her energy to emphasize speed, a thought occurred to her to try and focus the power to somewhere besides just inside or a part of her body.  She made the energy exit every pore of her skin, as if her sweat glands had suddenly become fire hoses.  The effect was the little energy display she had done when first powering up…times ten.  It was enough that her friends had to shout at her to stop before she stopped.

            Next, she still moved it outside of her body, but instead she concentrated on something like a balloon or a steel ball, and tried to make her energy mimic that.  It did perfectly, and if Buffy was right, she had just created a shield that would block or deflect just about anything for as long as her own energy held out.

            The last thing she tried was pushing her energy down, so that it was actually less than it normally was.  Wasn't easy to do, but it wasn't any more difficult to do than any of the other things she had done.  The whole thing was like tensing and un-tensing new and unfamiliar muscles.  For a while it chafed her, then it became hard work and shortly after that it became a strength of will to keep it up.

            Slowly, Slayer was learning her limits.  And overcoming them.

            The hour was as close to midnight as it got in the Compound, without having a chronometer to measure the specific microsecond.  Giles had reacquainted himself with old skills with blademanship, Willow was several degrees stronger already, but Xander was still looking for an outlet of his frustration with his new side-teacher.

            "So when are we going to do some actual training?" Xander asked after Buffy had gotten up from her "power exercises".

            "What do you mean?  This is what I do every night," Buffy pointed out to him, sounding as if she had just taken a very restful nap instead of worked herself in new and strenuous ways.

            "I mean sparring!  I haven't had that kind of training since three days ago!  And since we're all here, I figured that you would be wanting to try that too." Xander explained.

            Buffy frowned in thought for a moment before shrugging and nodded her head.  "OK.  I'll spar with you since you're so eager.  Just imagine I'm this big bad mister Master Fong," Buffy teased him while she got into the basic ready pose.

            Xander didn't even do that.  The moment Buffy mentioned Master Fong, all the frustration, anger, and pent-up rage came roaring to the surface, and a very un-Xander-like snarl crossed his face before he launched himself at her with his full power.

            Buffy ducked out of the way of Xander's initial strike, and then dodged the following kicks, and moved to the side of another punch before she saw her opening and pulled Xander forward by the lapels of his jacket, flipping him over her hip so that he went flying against the wall behind her.

            He quickly picked himself up and drew himself out of his rage attack and paused for a moment, thinking.  He powered up again, although he was already at max, and then he vanished in a flash of movement.  Well, to Willow and Giles he did.  Buffy was amazed that even though his features were blurred, she could almost still keep up with how fast Xander was moving, if not with sight, then definitely with the sounds he made.

            He was letting his energy carry him, as Buffy and Willow had that first day they had been taught ki, but he still let his foot hit the ground when he changed direction abruptly.  Buffy had found that if she concentrated enough, her energy would handle everything about sudden movements, including dealing with momentum and inertia.  It might put her body under more stress, but she didn't mind it after being in high enough gravities.

            Finally, after dancing across the room for several moments, Xander homed in on her and Buffy was ready, catching his kick and the following punches, automatically bringing herself to Xander's level.  Her energy was depleted enough as it was, she didn't feel like chasing after him, preferring to let him waste his energy trying to hit her instead.

            Slayer always seemed to stay one, and at times two steps ahead of the brash warrior, only landing hits when it was convenient for her, letting him chase after her and not once did he actually land a solid hit on her.  If he did, she always immediately countered it.

            With every attack it almost seemed like Buffy was toying with him, despite Xander's growing grin and he continued to push against her, only to hit air.  What no one but Buffy knew though, was that Xander had a better chance of beating her into submission than he had at any other time in their lives.

            Her energy was nearly depleted, she was physically exhausted and was running at best on fumes, and then there was the fact that Xander's skills at handling his energy seemed to have improved as much as Buffy's physical status had improved.  It was only due to her title as the Slayer and that increased physical status that she was even still standing against Xander in a full-out sparring match.  Even if it was one-sided.

            Still…  Buffy finally saw an opening for an attack that she could use to her full advantage.  She caught Xander's incoming fists, one right after the other, and then twisted them to momentarily paralyze them, and moving as fast as she could, delivered a four punch combo that instantly knocked Warrior X unconscious.

            Buffy pulled back after that and let go of all her restraints, one moment looking perfectly in control, the next on her knees, breathing heavily from exhaustion.  Willow was instantly by her side.

            "I don't care what you say, I'm taking you back to bed Buffy," Willow told the Slayer.

            Buffy shook her head feebly.  "Can't.  The whole gym… is sealed.  MTC… won't work," she explained between breaths.

            Willow paused in trying to pick Buffy up off the ground, until finally Buffy caught her breath enough to say, "Look, I'll just stay here and recuperate my energy.  You can still train with Giles and when Xander comes to, spar with him.  By then I'll have enough of my energy back to walk, under my own power, back to the apartment.  Not that I'll get to it other than through the MTC that is," she added.  At Willow's continued skeptical looks, she said finally, "I won't move from," she scooted back until she was sitting with her back next to the wall, "this spot until we're all ready to go back.  Slayer's honor."

            Willow finally cracked, smiled and, reluctantly, nodded her head in agreement.

            "All right.  Promise to rest, and no setting the gravity higher.  It's high enough for you as it is apparently," Willow admonished.  Willow turned back to the rest of the room, just as Xander started moaning from his position on the floor.

            Shortly, showing the effort it was due he pulled himself to his knees, holding his head in pain.  "Ugh, somebody get the license plate of the truck that hit me?" he mumbled as he settled back on his haunches with a huff of exerted air.

            "She didn't hit you that hard Xander," Willow told him with a frown set into her face.  "Now get up, I'm your new sparring partner, and I don't plan on ending up on the floor like you men."

            At that even Giles stopped and stared at the suddenly bold redhead.

            "Giles, she said "you men"," Xander pointed out.

            "Yes she did," the Englishman replied back amiably.  "I do believe that had the ring of a challenge to it.  What do you say my boy?"

            "Oh I must agree, that was definitely a challenge," Xander said with an evil grin on his fast as he got to his feet and Giles closed in on Willow's back.

            Suddenly the redhead Mage found herself unexpectedly outnumbered.

            "Ulp!" she squeaked when ki flames appeared around Giles and Xander.  "Buffy!  Help!"

            "Sorry Wills, I promised not to leave this spot, and I'm tapped out.  Slayers honor and all!" The Slayer teasingly excused herself as Willow's back up, thoroughly enjoying what promised to be a good show.

            "Oh.  Whoops," Willow said just before hidden instincts screamed at her and she ducked, back-flipped, and then somersaulted forward, all as fast as she could.  Thereby narrowly avoiding Giles' roundhouse kick to the back of her neck, Xander's leg sweep, and the two men's sudden rush immediately after they found she had dodged both of them.

            Willow could barely concentrate enough to remember to power up so she could have a chance against two other fighters, back flipping away from the guys.  Once she was a safe enough distance away, with the two warriors still rubbing their heads, she forced her body to it's maximum power level, although it took her at least five seconds to do so.  Buffy wasn't the only one who had been practicing.

            The male half of the team, thoroughly embarrassed now, shared a common look, and then both ran at the fully powered redhead side by side.  Willow jumped back and prepared to leap forward in a flying dragon kick, when Xander suddenly shot even further ahead, powering up as he did, which accelerated him even faster through the air.

            Willow could only dodge after that, as she was facing two opponents.  Avoiding Xander's advances usually brought her into close proximity to a blind side attack from Giles, although always at the last second, hidden instincts screamed at Willow to avoid all attacks and advances in just the right way.

            The Mage was thanking everything she could think of to thank that she had enough foresight to cast a spell on herself shortly after arriving here to increase her natural awareness.

_*                       *                       *_

            Buffy watched from her position on the floor as the rest of her team fought.  It was a humbling experience for the almighty Slayer.  Ever since she was a little girl she had been told she was special.  She was captain of the JV Cheerleading squad at Hemery, and the leader of her clique of friends as well.  Then along came her destiny as the Slayer.

            She was special.  Unique, the Chosen One, and only she could save her classmates and the rest of humanity against vampires and the forces of darkness.

            She had used to love playing 'Super Hero' when she was little.  Now she really was one, and here she was being told that she was the leader of a super hero team made up of her best friends.  And there they were, getting stronger and more powerful, and all because of her.

            She wasn't nearly as stuck up as she used to be, but everyone has issues of pride.  She was the one that had said yes to come here, she was the one who forced herself into late night training sessions, and it was because of her doing that that they were all here now.  Sure, they had chosen to come, but it was all because of her that they even got the choice.

            Buffy dozed for a minute…and during that minute, the dream of her future with Angel resurfaced and showed her what would happen if she didn't heed Goku's warning of her relationship with the souled vampire.

            Sleep with Angel, Angel loses his soul and once more becomes Angelus the Scourge of Europe, now scourge of the Hellmouth, he kills Miss Calendar and at least a hundred other innocent people, some that Buffy does know, and terrorizes her and her friends for months.

            Only now…things are seen from a new perspective.  She and her friends are immortal, each as capable as Goku is with his abilities and the ones they are learning here.  Giles wields Nightblade like a master, and Willow is a very powerful magic-user, but because he was warned she is unable to give Angel his soul back.

            The vision ends this time with Buffy blowing up the statue that held the portal to hell, with Angelus in front of it.  And when she jolts awake, she knows that the very next Tournament after that single key event, they lose and die.

            Two things she learns from this, watching her friends push themselves higher than she thought possible for them or anyone really.  She and Angel can never be together, and even if they could, they could never consummate that relationship.  And second…she is weak.

            Twice she has glimpsed the future through these dreams here.  Both end with her wasting _months_, unable to do what needs to be done, and even stopping others from doing it, saying she'll take care of it.  Costing hundreds of innocent people, people she is supposed to be _protecting_ as the Slayer, their lives.  Tears spill from her eyes as she silently condemns herself as she realizes this truth and what it means.

            Xander wouldn't hesitate to kill Angel if he became evil.  Giles certainly wouldn't, in fact he would lead the charge, a step behind Xander.  Even Willow would condemn and kill the soulless Angelus given half a chance.  Then she considered it from the other side.  And got the same answer.

            Would her friends kill someone so close that they were in love with that person, if that person got turned?  Yes.  All of them would.  The microsecond they learned the truth their life goal would be to release that person to the afterlife by destroying the demon that held their face.

            But she couldn't.

            It would kill her inside even more than knowing they had been turned.  It didn't matter if it was Angel, Xander, Giles, Willow, or even her Mom.  She couldn't kill someone that she loved.  Hurt them, stop them, maybe even cripple and lame them, but she could never kill.

            It didn't matter her views on killing, whether it made her as much a monster as she destroys every night, or a justified hero, she couldn't kill someone she loved.

            Buffy looked back up at her friends, wondering about the possibilities of the future.  Willow was right.  They did need to think long-term, just not about the things she was concerned with.  What made her visions so horrific was not that she couldn't kill Angelus to save so many people; no it was what happened in between.  Her making excuses, ordering the others around, and stopping them from doing what she couldn't.

            Buffy looked up and stared long and hard as they worked to make themselves stronger.  For her.  For her destiny.  For their destiny with her.  And for themselves.

            _'I am the most self-absorbed person in my entire universe.  Maybe even all of them,'_ Buffy silently decided.  It didn't matter what brought all of them here, what mattered was that they _were_ here, and what they were here _for_.

            She promised to herself, watching in her weakness as her closest friends became stronger, that she would no longer be the "reason for" with her Team.  She would be their leader, and rightly deserving so.  And leaders were not about themselves.  They were about their teams and the cause.  And their cause was to defeat and destroy evil.

            Now all she had to work on was being about her Team.

_*                       *                       *_

            Willow wasn't quite certain when her conversation with the two Arch Mages about her using magic in training came back to the front of her mind, but it was after she had gotten quite beaten.  Oh, she wasn't the only one who was hurting, that was for sure, but she definitely wasn't up to Buffy's level on avoiding either.

            Despite her magically increased awareness and heightened senses, some of the attacks Xander and Giles threw at her got through and caused their damage.  It took a large number of hits before Willow had finally had enough and went from pure defense to equal offense and started striking back at the men.  Xander then called for a free-for-all and it was no longer two on one but everyone for themselves.

            A while into the free-for-all, Willow finally remembered she was allowed to use magic in training, beyond just increasing her own physical abilities as well.  Giles also seemed to just recall that he and Xander both had weapons on their backs at the same moment.

            They all jumped back from each other to catch their breaths.  Then Willow thought about it and decided that if she wanted anything more or better than a beating, she would have to use magic, but what spells?  Amazingly her mind brought forth exactly the spells she would need for battle.  She left the lethal ones out of it for now, but that still left quite a few to choose from and she also mentally prepared the counters, no matter that she was facing two warriors who couldn't use magic the same way she could, to each of her spell arsenal.

            Xander and Giles drew their swords, Nightblade gleamed in readiness.

            Willow cupped her hands before her and began to mutter a spell just under her breath so no one else could hear.  A breathless wind blew her hair up and rustled her clothing as bright greenish hued energy started to coil around her arms and pool into the area between her cupped hands, slowly growing in size until a fairly decent sized energy ball was there.  She muttered the last of the spell a bit louder and the ball shined brighter, temporarily blinding all staring at it.  When the glare faded, everyone saw Willow, in a battle pose, floating in the air, a bright green fireball in each hand.

            Buffy woke up a bit from her doze, surprised by this sudden turn.  Giles only stared, always the patient Watcher.  Xander gulped and gripped his katana a bit tighter.

            "Come on then," the Mage challenged, a wild grin on her face.

            Buffy squinted her eyes at that look.

            The men charged at the same instant.  Half a meter from her, Willow cast the fireballs in her hands at them and jumped back, bouncing off the wall and back flipping through the air to land behind them.

            Giles slashed the fireball with Nightblade, disintegrating the attack spell, and chased after Willow.  When she flipped over him, instead of running into the wall, or even trying to follow her flight path, he jumped up and kicked off the wall, allowing him to spin around faster to face the now-behind-him Willow.

            Xander barely managed to duck and dodge the fireball at the same time and almost dropping his sword.  He was the slowest to turn and face her, but lucky for him, Watcher had engaged the Mage, distracting her from attacking him for the precious moments he needed to defend himself.

            Mage wasn't quite sure just how dangerous Watcher was with the mystic weapon.  She remembered the book about the Power Blades and specifically remembered the part about the descriptions of what a fully trained Blade warrior could do with their chosen weapon.  Seeing him slash a powerful magic attack in half was enough to make the Mage cautious, but until she saw a magic attack of his own coming from the Watcher's Blade, she was sure she could beat him, as far as power went.

            Kicking her ki up as high as she could and forcing the power into her muscles to increase her speed, Mage went about avoiding being struck by Watcher's powerful strokes with his Blade, dancing around his slow moving sword as she had danced around Buffy's fists the first time the two had sparred.

            Around that time, Xander had gotten himself back up and was making an attack run, literally, on Willow's back.  She felt him coming and the moment he was behind her, she jumped up and back flipped over him so fast neither he nor Giles could do much in the way of reacting, especially when Willow suddenly kicked the Warrior in his back as she came down from her jump and kicked off of him to jump further back from them.  This had the affect of propelling Warrior X directly into Watcher's still coming attack.  The Watcher had enough presence of mind to see what was happening and to keep from cleaving his young friend in two, he twisted the Blade so that the flat end hit X rather than the sharp edge.

            Unfortunately there was still enough force behind it that the young Warrior was knocked aside like a fly hit with a rolled up newspaper.

            Before either man had a chance to recuperate, or even catch their breath enough to apologize, they became aware that the Mage was flinging magic bolts at them, and Xander was the first to discover that they stung like hell and left you numb for a very long time after the hit.

            Giles was like Luke Skywalker as he deflected or blocked the bolts, however despite his skill, Willow kept enough of it up that he did get hit a couple of times.

            Things progressed very quickly after that.  Willow kept up the magic use, sometimes teleporting out of harms way, most of the time throwing magical attacks of every variety at the two warriors.  Xander, as he used to, almost bungled his way through the match, Giles always narrowly stopping Willow's attack against himself, and barely managing to turn his attacks to non-lethal whenever Willow slipped out of Warrior X's way leaving Xander to face the Watcher's attack on the Mage.

            Buffy began to notice a very interesting fact from her sideline seat.  Her team was not a team.  They were three people and herself who worked at the same goal for the same purpose, but they were not a team.

            She would have to work on this she thought.

            She also began to identify each of her teammates' strengths, and also their weaknesses, as well as favored tactics.  Giles was classic soldier, defend until you got an opening and then attack so fiercely that you drive the other back.  Willow was entirely defensive and incredibly agile and she used that to every advantage she could.  She always ducked or avoided and only attacked from long range.  Xander…

            The Warrior called X just couldn't seem to find his center, his focus like he did whenever she fought him, the Slayer decided.  He was always scrambling after Watcher and tried over and over to every failure to pinch the Mage between himself and Watcher, and she always got out.  That he kept repeating it said that either Xander was strategically stupid, or he was even more off-balance by his anger at his new teacher than the Slayer could have guessed.

            "That's enough!" Buffy shouted over the sounds of fighting once she had regained enough of her strength.  She had lost her stomach for watching this mockery of a bully fight long ago; she only lacked the energy to leave.

            They all stopped and looked at her as she stood up.

            "Return to Normal," Buffy ordered at the ceiling.  Then she ordered the seal to unlock and walked to the MTC.

            "We're coming back here the moment all of our individual training is complete," Buffy told them as they joined her at the portal.  "We've got a lot more work to do than I thought."

_*                       *                       *_

Third Week 

            For the next five days, their schedule remained unchanged.  They get up at the same time, get ready, eat breakfast, and go to their individual training areas.  Buffy and Willow to 2nd Training, Xander to the Temple of Chi Magicks, and Giles to the Training Gym to meditate.

            For Giles, he was progressing, but slowly.  His ideals and Watcher trained views of the world severely limited his ability in Nightblade teaching him without a thorough explanation of the process it was putting him through with a unique exercise.  It was progress, but slow enough that each, Bearer and Blade, were getting frustrated.

            By the end of the week in 2nd Training, both Buffy and Willow were shown the "Labyrinth", the fun name the Technicians called the top level of the fully submerged half of the 2nd Training facility.  Basically it was a swimming obstacle course that's depth was the equivalent of one mile beneath Earth's ocean surface.  Tubes, tunnels, loops, bars to swim around, and even a whirlpool to swim through, were just the beginning examples of what was throughout the entire level.

            Below that, the entire rest of the facility, from beneath that level to the ground level, there was nothing but water.  The very bottom could crush seven of the hardest most indestructible alloys the Compound knew of.  They were told that their outfits could, the jacket and Willow's jumpsuit, could survive the depth.  The only way _they_ could was if they could get their energy to high enough levels to keep the force of water back enough for them to survive, as it did with the energy in their home universe.

            Only the most powerful ki masters could survive the 500-kilometer depth pressure, not even the Mariner had been to the bottom.  Immortality doesn't much help when your body gets crushed like a bug between a mountain and a giant's thumb.

            Xander only complained about what Master Fong was putting him through, but he was still learning things that he never knew before.  Albeit he had never _wanted_ to know them before, but he had stopped complaining when Buffy beat him up and killed him purposely several times because he whined too much.

            And every night, they all went to the Training Gym and worked as hard as they could.  After the second night, Buffy had them working on working together in a fight, anticipating each other's moves, planning tactics on site based on the opponent and what they could do against him.  Willow had speed, Giles had skill, but Xander had strength and endurance on his side, while Buffy was the complete amalgamation of each.

            Buffy proved her point by working with each of them, anticipating and working with each team member's moves and attack style to compliment them and herself and making it almost a joke with how well she and her partner defeated the other two.

            She always alternated the "teams", sometimes two on two, sometimes all of them against her, other times two would be a team and the other two would be on their own, or someone else would be the single man out.  But they did learn.  Willow and Xander were as good a team as Buffy and anybody, and Giles was a compliment in that his skill increased with each battle making him almost as difficult to beat as Buffy.

            Buffy's power was also a topic of interest, as she kept getting stronger.  After mastering 100 Gs in private training, taking her only about three days before she had fully adapted, she upped it to 120 Gs, making the additional gravity external rather than adjusting the settings on her suit.  In response to her greater challenge, Xander too started setting his GEO suit higher.

            Willow's magic use and control were increasing, but slower even than Giles' training with Nightblade was going.  She was exhausted, magically speaking, after less than half an hour of extensive use, and it took her nearly another hour to be fully regenerated from that, even using cross-variant recharge techniques that cut down on the time and helped increase her reserves at the same time.

            Her control over battle spells was perfect.  They were direct spells with only a single result.  It was her _other_ spells she was having more trouble with.  Scrying spells, portals, teleportation, and even shield spells that couldn't hold off multiple physical attacks for very long as it is, almost all of them went wrong in some way or another.

            These required more than book knowledge, these types of magic use required a certain…skill.  Which the Mage was learning the hard way, but learning all the same.

            Shielding spells, Willow made her first priority and practiced them at every opportunity she got, whether it was blocking attacks, keeping people from bumping her in line at lunchtime, or shielding other things from the same or other stuff.  It was tough, and a strain on her magic energy, but it paid off in the end as before the third week began, she could create a magical barrier that could, she believed, with stand the same force Goku had withstood when he had demonstrated "tough" to them that first day.

            Ofcourse she wouldn't vouch for that until it was properly tested.

            When they first arrived, first thing they would always do, would be to seal the gym, and then they would raise the gravity to the level they desired and began stretching.  After completing that, sometimes it took longer, sometimes not as long, then Buffy would start directing exercises.

            Even Giles was forced through some exercises by his Slayer, but more often than not it was in a bit of petty revenge by having him run and do other basic exercises.  Willow was put through her paces by at first working out until she was physically exhausted, and then cast a spell that renewed her body, and then she focused on increasing her magical skill.  And while her skill was slow in coming, while she strenuously worked on it her magical reserves kept increasing.  It still took her an hour to regenerate after fully depleting herself, but it was usually after she had gone on for a bit longer than she had the night before.

            Xander focused himself only on getting stronger.  He and Buffy would spar, and then after he got beat, both of them would start working with and learning their ki while putting it and their bodies through their paces.  Xander, after a few hints from Buffy, started experimenting with his ki as she did, but he didn't seem to have the intuition she did when it came to manipulating his energy.

            Seeing his difficulty, Buffy, after the third night, finally started giving him some pointers, what she had found to work for her and produced favorable results.  Some of her pointers helped him to the same end, while quite a few others were just some things he couldn't do.

            Buffy could now form a full body shield with her ki, as well as direct it to increase her body in any way she desired, and she certainly wasn't dismissing the environmental effects her powering up had.  One night she spent half the time trying to figure out how to control those "environmental effects".

            What she could do easily, or figured out first anyway, was how to "push" everything around her away, and not just the wind either.  She found she could also control certain aspects of the air, by sending her energy through it in controlled burst, she could heat up the surrounding area so it was like Death Valley in summer time, and at the same time cool the air by using her energy to cancel out other heat sources' energy.  Manipulating the wind was just an offshoot from that, heating and cooling the surrounding air.

            Tremors were another side effect that Buffy had wanted to control, but that was one of the things that escaped her grasp each time.  The times she had thought she had it figured out, the next time she tried it, nothing.  She couldn't explain it, and hoped Goku could when she mentioned it to him next.

            Speaking of their Trainer, except for a couple rare instances in the Movable Mess, they had hardly seen him since the day after he had shown them ki techniques.  And despite her desire to not show Goku how much they had advanced already, Buffy, not to mention the rest of her team, were anxious to face the Saiyan again.

            The first day of the third week at the Compound, Buffy became curious as to why their Trainer was no longer taking an active role in their training, though she supposed that he was letting them all get caught up with their Second Training, and he'd said from the start that Giles would train more by himself anyway.  But still… the Slayer missed their, as Xander called it, "torture sessions in which they learned many new meanings of pain and suffering" with the demi-Saiyan.

            She'd thought of saying something to the others before they left, but Giles didn't even come out for breakfast and Xander was looking majorly depressed, while Willow was still giving her "looks" for not giving them both enough private time to talk about "stuff".  She promised to herself to do something about that tonight.

            "So Xan, what's the mean Master Fong doing to you today?" Buffy teasingly asked as she ate.  Xander looked up and scowled at her, she only grinned in return.

            "Something about bio-meta-physical energy formations.  And he repeated it enough times that, yes, I'm sure that's what its called.  Beats me what it is though," Xander admitted, shrugging as he finished his own plate of morning meal.  He pronounced done, feeling fully satisfied, and the plate and utensils disappeared into the green light.

            He got up and went to his room to clean his teeth, something he'd figured out part way through the second week was that the mirror in all their bathrooms, despite appearing as part of or connected to the wall.  Well, there was a catch that opened it up to reveal the always fully stocked medicine cabinet, fully decked out with everything you could possibly need or keep in a bathroom.  Depending on whose room you looked in of course.

            Buffy just smirked at his retreating form and managed to take another bite before she realized that she was now alone in a room with Willow, and it was quite possible they would remain that way for long enough for the Mage to gain the self-confidence to ask…

            "Buffy.  We need to talk about what…what happened the other week.  You've been avoiding me constantly and I know this is not something we should talk about in front of others…" Willow would have gone on, but Buffy stopped her with a look.

            Swallowing, Buffy said to her best friend, "Wills, I don't regret being a shoulder for you to cry on when you need it.  I'll gladly do it again if asked.  But if you're talking about afterwards, in your room, I promise you, there are no misconstrued feelings there.  You were helping me out with a medical condition and incidentally at the same time I was helping you out with your "homework".  It doesn't…it shouldn't matter the state of our dress or lack there of.  Our intent was purely innocent and nothing but pure innocence happened.  And I haven't been avoiding you.  We've just been really busy."

            Willow nodded as Buffy stopped speaking.  "I remember…what you said that night.  Concentrate now on getting stronger so we don't have to worry later.  I promise Buffy, I'll do better.  But…"

            "I know," Buffy said, thinking she had an inkling, and she really did, of what Willow was thinking.  Willow only nodded back.  The rest of the time until Xander came back out was spent in pleasant silence as the friends ate to gain energy for the day.

            Once everyone had eaten and finished cleaning themselves, Buffy headed over to the MTC to set the coordinates for her and Willow to the Second Training facility, when suddenly her Global chirped.  Frowning, as she hadn't been expecting anybody to contact her, she pulled the gray device out and flipped it open.

            "Slayer," she said automatically.  She was surprised at how fast she had gotten used to, as Willow put it "Global etiquette".  That wasn't all she was surprised at when she saw Goku's face staring back at her.

            "Go to the Main Gym.  Second Training has graduated you.  You only go there from now on to practice and train.  Warrior X still goes to the Temple of Chi Magicks, but you and Mage come to the Main Gym.  I'll explain when you get here."  Suddenly the connection cut out.

            Frowning, and suddenly remembering every reason she had ever imagined for wanting to kill and beat the Super Saiyan, Buffy snapped the Global closed and impatiently waved Xander ahead of her and Willow.

            "But…" Xander started to protest, wanting to go to the Main Gym and train there with his friends.  He stopped short when Buffy's eyes squinted at him as though he were the very next vamp that she was going to dust and had pissed her off before hand.  He didn't do anything else; he just stepped forward, placed his hand on the panel, and told the Matter Transfer Conveyer to take him to the Temple of Chi Magicks.

            After he was gone, Buffy shared a look with Willow, who mirrored it back at her, and then directed the MTC to the Main Gym, Training section, and they both stepped through…into a room full of vampires.  That is to say, at least three full battalion armies of vampires.

            "Surprise!" Goku called from above with a couple other fighters with him.  "You now have unlimited access to the Main Gym and all Compound facilities.  Thought I might set up a training program for you to help start you off," Goku explained casually.

            Buffy actually smiled.  She had been taking her Make Seven kitana with her to every training session, and had yet to use it to its full potential.  She popped the bottom of it and the sword became un-hilted.  In a single second, the Slayer had drawn her gold-hilted blade, leaped forward, and cut at least five strokes and was halfway through her sixth, dusting seven vampires at once, and only started powering up and applying that about five seconds after the vampires started to attack her and Willow, which was at least fifteen seconds after Buffy had started attacking them.

            Willow smirked, finally glad to let loose and seeing Goku again helped in that.  Just like every other member on her team, she wanted to see the Trainer's face smushed into the dirt just as bad as they did.  At first she cast a couple fireballs at vampires, once or twice destroying several with a beam of light shot from her fingertip.  They were delaying tactics.

            Finally, after a full minute and a half, she recalled the spell she needed and called out to Buffy, calling her back.  "Buffy!" she grabbed the Slayer's arm and kept her from advancing the vampires again.  Then she focused her energies and then cast her left arm in a horizontal arc before them and shouted "_Morra morte!_"

            As she did, blue-green energy poured from her hand and from the arch her arm cast, a pure wave of magical energy that grew larger with each molecule that it traveled, flew forward from the warrior pair and then moved onwards to every corner of the Gym, growing so large that it didn't even have to rebound off of anything.  About two feet in front of the wave though, every vampire, _every_ vampire was instantly dusted, crying out in agony as nothing but the dust skeleton was left to be scattered by the energy wave itself.

            By the time the spell was over, roughly in the fifth minute since Buffy and Willow had entered the Gym, only five people remained.  Three of them were floating, for all appearances very casual about the display of power they had just witnessed.  Goku was just smirking knowingly, which told Willow that the Arch Mages had indeed talked to him about letting her use magic in training.  Willow smirked right back.  She was looking forward to showing Goku _exactly_ what all she had learned and could do now.

            Buffy was just staring up at the three other fighters with a blank stare.  She had been working for several days now on keeping her emotions hid.  It still wasn't easy when she was worked up, but when she was either angry or calm, she could usually pull off a very convincing poker face.  She hoped she was pulling it off now as her gut clenched in nervousness.

            The Slayer then pulled out her Global, chose 'GEO suit' and pushed the gravity to a full 100 Gs.  She hadn't even noticed any change in gravity when they entered the Gym, so she had to assume that it wasn't very high.  She was proved wrong as she suddenly felt herself undergo such enormous pressure she almost canceled her change in the settings.  She would have too, if she hadn't felt her body already adapting and knew she could still move, even if she wouldn't be able to perform any spectacular displays of strength.  She closed and put her Global back, having done it so anyone not right beside her couldn't have even seen the device.

            "Not bad, but that's not why we're here," Goku said in the aftermath.

            "Then why are we here?" Buffy asked, but before anyone else could say anything, she added, "I would assume that you would be here to complete our training in the use of ki, as while you showed us all how to access it, you didn't do a thing to help us learn how to use it."

            "Very perceptive Slayer," Goku remarked.  "And yes, we'll be completing your ki training, or as much as we can during this next week.  So please Willow, no more magic."

            She just gave him a sly little smirk as the three flying warriors landed and made their way towards the duo.  "So who are your friends Goku?" Willow asked, conveniently avoiding answering Goku's request.

            Goku smiled and gestured on his right to the very large purple haired fighter who had been one of the ones to blast Goku in the 'tough' portion.  "This, as I think you might remember, is Broly, he's from a different universe than my own, but has the exact same lineage and lives in the same time.  He's also part Saiyan, but for some reason," Goku unwrapped his tail from his waist while both teenage girls could easily see that Broly did not have any kind of a tail, "I'm stronger than he is, and I was also the one to personally train him when he first came to the Compound, as I am training you."

            "Cool," Buffy commented, eyeing the six and a half foot muscular alien.

            "Nice to meet you Broly," Willow said with a smile, and the purple haired man bowed towards the ladies and replied in a soft, intense voice, "Thank you, it is a pleasure to meet the both of you as well."

            Goku smiled and then gestured to his left where a dark-haired human, neither girl could say _how_ they knew, only that he was, who was about a foot shorter than Goku with short hair and bright green eyes, stood and bowed when introduced.

            "This is another student of mine, in fact I finished his training just before I received word that I would be training your group Slayer," Goku added with a smile.  "This is Ryu San.  He's also pretty powerful and he's doing very well in the Tournament.  Enough to survive without even trying actually."

            The three warriors laughed out loud, causing the girls to share confused looks and shrug at each other.  Seeing their joke not exactly working, they stopped laughing and Ryu got down to business.  He looked both girls up several times, his face showing intense concentration, which proved that he wasn't "feeling them up" with his eyes, but looking for something else.

            "You have great potential," Ryu finally told them, speaking Japanese.  Of course they easily understood him.

            Buffy snapped a look at Goku and asked, in Japanese, "Are we going to have to talk in Japanese for the rest of this session now?"  Goku laughed and replied in English, "Don't worry, you'll eventually figure out how to control it, but Ryu's native language is Japanese, so humor him.  Its not like you can't understand him.  And he's right."

            "Thanks," Buffy accepted the praise, but she still wasn't happy about the side effects from her implant.  "Now what are you going to do to help me realize that potential?" she challenged Ryu.

            The dark-haired human smiled at her.  "Whatever I have to," he replied.  She smirked.  "Good."

            Then she turned to Goku and asked, "So now what?"

            Goku nodded and told them, "First, power up.  We'll be teaching you some subtle little tricks that you might have come across on your own with a little bit of experimentation, but this way everything is covered, and even if you do already know how to do it, it's also a good idea to know how others do it.  Now first…"

            For the next four and a half hours, Goku and his friends showed the two teen girls just about everything that Buffy had discovered on her own during their own training sessions, and a couple neat tricks that she hadn't quite figured out yet.

            What took so long was not the teaching though, but the insistence of the Trainers that they demonstrate the technique, and then have the girls do it until both of them had done it well enough to satisfy them all.  Buffy only needed one turn each time, but Willow was the real drag down.  It wasn't until Buffy described it and coached her through them that Willow was soon just as versatile in using her ki as Buffy was.

            "Okay, as neat, and fun, as all this was…" Buffy started to say, "…when are we going to get to the _real_ training, and other than ki projection and shields, what else are you holding back?"

            "Well, there's flying…" Ryu replied.

            "And energy attacks…" Broly added his two cents.

            "And multi-spectrum attacks," Goku finished with a smile.

            "Flying?" Buffy repeated while at the exact same time Willow asked, "Energy attacks?"

            The men chuckled for a couple seconds while Goku answered Buffy's question first.  "Just focus your ki around you, and let it carry you.  It takes concentration and…" Goku stopped talking when Buffy crouched, her aura flashing into existence around her…and lifted her into the air!  She flew straight up for a couple of meters before stopping and hovering.

            "Great!  Now how do I control it?" she asked.

            Goku, and the others, were stunned, but scratching the back of his head, Goku told her, "Uh, just direct your energy as thrust in the way you want to move.  Downwards to go up, behind you to go forward, and so on and so forth."

            Buffy nodded from the air.  She was actually extremely nervous.  She hadn't thought ahead and the moment she got the information she needed from her Trainer, she quite literally took off.  _'Need to control that urge from now on,' _she thought to herself.

            Just before she was about to employ Goku's further knowledge, she took a look around herself.  She was maybe seven meters off the ground, not supported by anything except her own energy, nothing but people beneath her to catch her if she fell, and nothing supporting her.  She noted that twice, first in fear, and then in excitement.

            She was flying!  Really flying!!

            Humans had dreamed of this for ages and in three weeks and a single conversation, and here she was doing it!  Before her giddiness or her nervousness could paralyze her any further, she took a deep breath and slowly applied what Goku had told her to do.

            Slowly, she ascended higher, and then she turned her body horizontal and began to fly forward some.  She wasn't going very fast, more like she was just hovering and swimming through the air like it was made of Jell-O.  That was because she was still in the equivalent of taking baby steps and keeping her energy output small.

            Taking a deeper breath and steeling her decision in her mind and heart, as well as her stomach from ejecting anything, Buffy put forth all of her energy into her "thrust".  The ki flame erupted around her suddenly and she shot off faster than a jet off an aircraft carrier.

            Just before she would have hit the wall, she shifted and angled herself upright so she shot to the ceiling once again, but before she was even halfway there, she turned back towards the inwards of the room, inverted this time.  Before too long she was doing wild, high-speed air tricks, spirals, loop-de-loops, corkscrews, and everything thing else she could think of to do in the air.

            Finally, Buffy grew tired of the novelty, but still loving it, and angled herself on an approach and slid to a solid stop right where she had taken off from.  "That.  Was _SO cool_!!" she exclaimed screeching.  "Willow, you have got to try it!"

            Willow smiled with an 'I know something you don't' smile and replied, "But I can already fly.  Magically."

            Goku was ready for that one.  "Yeah, and what happens when some dark wizard in the Tournament casts a magic nullification?  It happens more often than you think.  This gives you an option of something besides magic, and lets you save up that wasted magic for more important spells later on if you have to.  Now since Buffy succeeded so well, let's see you try Mage."

            Willow grimaced, and accepting the logic, she started breathing and focusing on her own ki, and making it pick her up.  She had to power up to her absolute max before she realized that despite the lesser energy in the Compound, she needed at least that much to even hover beyond a single meter above the floor.  Once she had accepted this fact, it wasn't too much longer before she copied Buffy's earlier flight, and thoroughly enjoying herself during the process.

            "Okay, yeah, that was very cool," Willow agreed with her bestest friend as she landed.

            "Told ya," Buffy said smugly.

            "Now we move on to something more difficult," Goku told them.  "You know how to externalize your ki, but all that does is allow you to create ki shields around other objects and affect your surroundings with a more basic version of psychic powers like Psychokinesis and telekinesis.  This is a bit more direct."

            They all stepped close and Goku held his hands cupped before him.  "I'll start off small, so you get the principle behind it first," he said as a small pinprick of energy appeared, no bigger than a single pea.

            "Energy attacks," Goku explained, his voice almost hypnotic, "An art all by itself almost.  Taking a portion of your own life force and using it as a weapon of mass destruction against something, almost anything else.  Ki can be extremely potent in the real world and not directed in a living body.  And even more destructive.  We'll cover multi-spectrum energy attacks later, but the majority of today will be spent in teaching you how to control this aspect of your ki."

            "To begin with, feel the energy in the center of your very being, at the pit of your gut," Goku continued, holding the small energy ball.  "Bring it out, directing it, focusing it, between your hands like this.  Then, as you focus, slowly build it," the energy ball slowly grew to the size of a baseball, "and build it," the size of a melon, "until it feels like its ready to explode, and then…" in demonstration he pointed the energy ball outwards away from the group and as he said the final words, it flew out at an amazing speed and exploded in a spectacular display of power, "…throw it!"

            Buffy and Willow stared, stunned into silence.  Then Buffy shook herself.  She had seen it, seen what it could do, and she was pretty certain that she knew how to do it herself as she had been paying close attention to Goku's energy during the display as well.

            Rather than say or ask anything, she went over what she knew in her mind, as well as what she had just witnessed and all other past displays of energy attacks.  She cupped her hands before her, holding them about a foot apart from each other and then began to concentrate and focus her energy as had been explained to her.  At first, she didn't think it was working, so she just focused on her power and pooling it between her hands.

            Before she, or anyone else, knew it, she was holding a molten yellow energy ball between her hands, at least a couple inches bigger all around than the foot between her palms as she had expected.  Too surprised to do anything with it, Buffy just cast it away from her, as much with her mind and power as with her hands.  The small energy bomb flew towards the far wall, where it impacted an explosion easily twice as powerful as the one Goku had produced shook the Main Gym.

            "Shit!" Buffy cursed.  She wouldn't try that again any time soon.

            Again, the stares of disbelief directed at her, but the guys were becoming used to being surprised by how quickly the Slayer picked things up and began to offer some more comments and suggestions about how to do it.  Willow was in the background, listening intently, not wanting to try it herself until she was very sure of what to do.

            Then she began to introspect the concept of using her life force as a weapon.  From what Goku was saying, and Buffy had already proven, using one's ki in such a manner meant that it was almost entirely uncontrollable.  But it was _her_ life force Willow's subconscious mind reinforced.  No matter its form or purpose now, it was still a _part of her_ and that, to the Mage, meant that she could control it, no matter what.

            While Buffy listened and paid close attentions to the advice the others were giving her, Willow was focusing her attention inwards.  She could use magic, which after a fashion was similar to the life force of the universe, which required a very delicate degree of control.  Well if she could do that with the energy of the universe, what said she couldn't utilize similar control over her own energy?

            Willow powered up and focused her energy between her hands.  At first, nothing happened, and then a small point began to form, but soon dispersed.  It took at least six tries before Willow could successfully form and maintain any sort of energy ball.  When she had finally done it, it was about the size of a small baseball, golden-yellow, and hovering precisely between her palms.

            Taking a deep breath, Willow exercised her focus and control, and sent the energy blast flying out, almost as fast as Goku's and Buffy's had gone.  Everyone saw this, and expected it to blow up mid-air, or even hit the wall or floor and explode.  None of them expected it to suddenly arch upwards at a right angle ten feet in front of the wall, and then do the same at the ceiling.

            Willow was holding very still, her face and eyes scrunched up in intense concentration, her hands still held before her, but showing no sign of following the ki ball or directing it in any fashion.  Beads of sweat soon formed on Willow's face as the glowing ball of destructive energy began to move in the same patterns that the girls had taken when flying.  Not even a full minute after it's formation though, the ball suddenly cast itself at the point where Goku's blast had exploded, and quite nearly matched the explosion the Saiyan had caused.

            In the stunned aftermath of such a display of power and control, everything was frozen until the explosion had finally faded away, but right when Buffy was about to compliment her friend, Willow suddenly bodily collapsed to her knees.  Everyone instantly rushed forward, but amazingly Buffy was still the first one there.

            "Omigawd!  Willow!  Are you all right?!" she screeched.

            "Yeah!  Buffy, I'm fine, really!" Willow's voice was surprisingly strong, but still laced with exhaustion.

            "She's fine Buffy," Goku assured the Slayer.  "Speaking from personal experience, doing something like that takes a lot of energy.  A _LOT_ of energy.  I'm amazed that Willow actually did it.  She just needs to rest for a bit and regain her energy.  It was just a bit of a rush at how quickly her energy was used up."

            "Ain't that the truth," Willow muttered as Buffy and the other men helped her to her feet.

            "Really Buffy, I'm alright, I just got a bit dizzy is all," Willow assured the Slayer one more time.  She didn't seem convinced, but she finally stopped doting, and started gushing.

            "That was amazing Will!  How did you control it like that?  You did control it, didn't you?"

            Willow smiled at Buffy's enthusiasm.  "Yes, I controlled it, and why shouldn't I be able to?  It's my life force, I can do what I want with it.  But, it's harder than learning to walk all over again.  Not only do you have to contend with how the energy wants to flow outwards into nothing or just blow up, but to precisely control it, you have to fight the energy in the space around you as well.  Like all those sharp turns I had it do?  Those were the hardest because I had to deal with the momentum, the friction of the air, and even keeping the thing going instead of coming to a complete stop."

            Buffy blinked in surprise, but Broly nodded when she looked at him, agreeing with what Willow had said as true.  "Well bummer.  I mean I can barely hold onto it long enough to throw it properly, how am I gonna do all that you just did?"

            "I was actually planning on saving that for the advanced lessons Buffy," Goku admitted, scratching the back of his head.  "Today I was just hoping you could fire a single energy ball from your hand.  But see if you can consciously control the amount of energy that goes into your attack this time.  Make sure that it's nothing you can't handle or have to end up throwing away because it got too big."

            Buffy nodded and took several steps away from the group and took a few deep breaths, getting her focus.  Once she felt her energy flowing around her, and keeping in mind both Willow and Goku's advice, she began to slowly build the energy between her hands.  It almost seemed that her power wanted to burst out away from her, but she quickly and strongly pushed it back in line, into her control.

            After a couple minutes of intense concentration, she had a basketball sized energy ball floating between her palms.  She began to take deeper breaths, and then moved her arms so she was about to push the energy ball away from her.  Then, suddenly it flew off!

            About ten meters out from Buffy, it started into a wide, slowing curve, but kept most of its speed as it raced along it's new path before coming to a dead stop and then shooting upwards at a thirty degree angle.  It made a full, circular revolution around the group twice before angling back down, and that's when it quickly began to look unstable and fell to the ground and exploded.

            Buffy, like Willow, dropped to her knees after the energy ball was no more, but she was back to her feet before the others could get to her.

            "You weren't kidding Wills," Buffy said, gasping to get her energy back.  "That was almost like bowling, except that you can _actually_ control the ball, and a whole lot harder than it looks."

            "That's very impressive girls, very impressive," Goku couldn't help complimenting them.  "Now I'll let you get used to this new skill before moving on.  Don't try and control it so much as learn what you can do with it.  Oh, and feel free to use any of us as target practice." Goku added smugly.

            The other two warriors shot death-ray glares at him.  What stopped them from using _him_ as _their_ target practice though was Willow frowning and saying that she would rather just blast the wall.

            The girls practiced for another couple hours, Buffy trying to sneak a blast at Goku, but he always seemed to know when she tried that and it usually backfired on her.  Literally.

_*                       *                       *_

            Xander, at the exact same time the girls were in the Main Gym with Goku and his friends, was at the Temple of Chi Magicks, and sitting calmly on a stool in the middle of Master Fong's sanctum, while the ancient Chinese Chi Wizard walked around and around the room talking and teaching Xander the basics of how the universe worked, and how chi was a fundamental and vital part of it.  Today, if his earlier claims had any worth of understanding to them, Master Fong was going to teach Xander how to use his own chi as an energy weapon.

            Of course the Wizard didn't say it exactly like that, but that was what Xander understood from between all the "One more things".

            "Ai yah!  You are not paying attention…!" Master Fong snapped his finger on Xander's forehead.

            (AN:  when in Master Fong's speech ' … ' indicates that whining thing Uncle does on certain words, so just take it to mean, like in the sentence above "atten-chAAAAAANN!".  Please keep this in mind for all future uses with Master Fong's words)

            (AN2:  Master Fong is _speaking_ Chinese, therefore Xander, and the rest of us understand him in English because of Xander's Translator Implant.  Ergo, he does not use Chinese terms as they should be properly used.  AKA, I'm stupid and not smart enough to properly research everything I'm having these "experts" "claim", so I'm using a sort of hybrid of American English, and Chinese theological concepts.)

            "Ow!" Xander rubbed the spot.  "Well its kind of hard when you interrupt your explanations by saying "One More Thing" every other word!"  He was interrupted by another rap on his head, "Ow!"

            "Don't talk back!  Now pay… attention!" Master Fong snapped.

            "Yes master," Xander grumbled, still rubbing his head, but paying attention to the Chi Wizard.  Seemingly satisfied with that, Master Fong turned back to his worktable and continued with his lecture.

            "I have already explained about how the soul is a source for great power.  Other than keeping you alive, it also does many more things, the least of which is define who a person can or will be when they are born," Master Fong explained.  "The soul emits many different types of energy, and if used in such a manner, can be an everlasting conduit for energy so that no matter what technology or civilization it is used for, a single soul could power it forever.  The first type of energy is…" He stopped talking and looked at Xander expectantly.

            After a moment, Xander realized that he wanted him to answer and cast his mind out for an answer before the information smacked him upside the head with the answer.  "Oh!  Uh, ki, uh I mean, life energy!"

            Master Fong went on like he hadn't even paused, "Ching.  Life energy.  That which the body needs to continues functioning and living on the fundamental levels.  Scientists call this neuro-energy.  The second… type of energy is…"

            "Uh…mental…energy?" Xander answered uncertainly.

            Master Fong gave him a dirty look but continued anyway.  "The third… type of energy is mental energy, also known as Yi.  Powerful psychics and Chi Masters are the only humans that can use mental energy.  The second type of energy is shen, Spirit energy.  There are many other types of energy that the soul emits constantly.  You, as a warrior in the Tournament… only need to know these three… types of power.  _Ki_ is the term for life… energy, and simplest term to use.  We will call the mental energy Psionic… energy.  Don't ask me, that's what it's called.  And spirit energy.  We will call the spirit energy, _chi_."

            Xander nodded, indicating he was paying attention.  Then he got confused, which showed easily on his face.  "Uh, isn't it the same thing?  Chi and ki I mean?" he asked.

            "What did I say about interrupting?!" Master Fong screeched, and Xander cringed back, expecting to get hit again, but instead Master Fong went back to pacing.

            "To many, yes, it is the same.  That is because life energy and spirit energy are easily confused with one another.  Spirit energy can only be identified when used by ghosts or those that are trained to use it.  Life energy can easily copy the effects that those trained with spirit energy can accomplish and a great deal more.  But they are not the same.  They all come from the same source, they both accomplish the same ends, but they are different.  Both in training, and because they are!"

            "Right, gotcha, not the same!" Xander hastily confirmed.

            "Good.  Now, hold this," Master Fong put a crystal shaped like an egg in his hand.

            Confused, and seeing nothing wrong with it, Xander took the egg.  Once he did, it began to glow with an inner light.  It was very faint, but as he continued to stare at it, he could swear that he saw it pulsing along with the beat of his heart.

            "This is a device that can be used to measure one's spirit energy.  YOU HAVE VERY WEAK CHI!" Master Fong yelled into his ear.  It was all Xander could do to stay seated on the stool.

            "We must begin to strengthen it, as you strengthen your ki.  But first…"

            "Yeah, yeah, I have to become aware of it.  So how do I do that?" Xander asked.

            Master Fong gave him a rare smile and Xander's face fell.  Whenever the old coot smiled at him, he knew he was in trouble.  Big trouble.

            "You have to be a ghost," Fong replied easily, before a dagger imbedded itself to the hilt through Xander's right eye.  Death was instant.

            The next sensation Xander became aware of was a feeling of floating, of bodylessness.  That became a little too obvious when he awoke completely and saw himself with a dagger in his right eye, in the middle of a circle of herbs as Master Fong paced the circle.  What was wrong with that was that he _was looking down on himself_!

            "What the…?" were the first words out of the new ghost's mouth.

            Master Fong was still circling his corpse, steadily chanting "Yu mo gui gui fi di sow.  Yu mo gui gui fi di sow.  Yu mo gui gui fi di sow."  The really weird part of that though was that a trail of bright green energy trailed him and then flowed into the circle around his dead body.  A body that was supposed to be immortal, he realized with a jolt!

            "Hey you old coot!  Put me back in my body before I like start to decompose or something!  What the hell is this anyway?  I'm supposed to be immortal!!" Xander screamed at the Chi Wizard.

            At first it seemed that he hadn't been heard, and then after a moment, Master Fong turned and looked up at him, or at least in his general direction, and chanted one final time, "Yu mo gui gui fi di sow."  After that, Xander felt as if something had changed, although he couldn't even begin to hazard a guess as to what it might be.

            "So," Master Fong's annoying whine suddenly called out to him, "how do you like being a ghost?"

            "You think this is funny old man?!  Change me back!  What if I get stuck like this?" Xander began to panic.

            Master Fong just smiled up at him.  "Simple finishing spell.  The Powers will break through it eventually.  And then you will automatically revive.  NOW, go learn how to use your spirit energy.  You are a free-floating spirit now, it is how you move and can interact with the physical world.  Once you have revived we will begin training your chi to become stronger."

            Before Xander could say anything to that though, the Chi Wizard began to leave the room.  "Wait a second!  What if the Powers don't break through for a couple of weeks?!  And what the hell am I supposed to do in the mean time?"

            For half a second he thought he saw the old man smirk or genuinely smile or something like that, but the next instant he heard in a conversational tone, "You are very stupid."

            "Why you…!" Xander raged, but Fong had already gone.

            He let out a breathless sigh and sagged where he floated.  "Well, I'll be damned before I follow that guy around for my entire time as a…as a ghost." Suddenly this wasn't looking too bad.  Ever since he hit puberty, having ghost powers was one of the things he wanted most.  Now he had them.  "Best not waste this valuable opportunity," he said to himself and easily floated himself upwards and through the ceiling.

            Ten minutes later he finally exited the roof of the Temple of Chi Magicks.  "Geez Louise, how many levels does that place have anyway?" he asked himself, exasperated.

            After that he spent about an hour trying to find his way around.  Eventually he ended up at what he knew as the 'Gym Facility', which housed almost all of the Private Training Gym sectors in the Compound.  Not having anything better to do, he flew in and tried to feel out for any familiar kis with his senses.

            After a moment, he surprised himself in finding Giles' very nearby and he immediately made a beeline for the Watcher.  Half a moment later, he was in the Private Gym and looking down on Giles' still, meditating form.  He smirked as he descended to the Blade wielder's level on the floor.

            Then he remembered something, both from popular media and something he'd come across in one of the scrolls Fong had him researching, about how ghosts could enter people's dreams, and how humans and many other species were closer to the spirit world when unconscious.  Briefly he considered the negative aspects of going into G-man's dreams, but those were quickly cast out in favor of annoying the Watcher some more.

            His decision made, Xander began to focus on entering the G-man's dreams, mostly by trying to figure out how to do it.  Amazingly though, because of his developed 6th sense, he felt his own energy flowing around him in response to his focusing and like a whirlpool, he was literally sucked up into the meditating body on the floor and the next thing he knew, he was in Giles' meditation dream.

            Or actually, the mental construct of his mind that he and Nightblade had made for the purpose of the Power Blade training him in its uses.

            Xander found himself in a square wood-paneled room, while Giles was in the middle of it, sparring against a shadow opponent using the Crane Kung Fu style.  Xander, too shocked to do or say anything at first, just stayed where he was and watched the match with an interested eye.

            Amazingly enough, Giles was decked out in full Librarian tweed as he punched, kicked, dodged and jumped about like the world's greatest martial artist against the shadow.  Even more amazing, Xander saw that he wasn't even sweating, and was easily wiping the floor with his opponent.

            After a couple moments, Xander felt a… a presence become aware of him.  He wasn't sure if it was Giles or not, but he could all of a sudden feel eyes watching him, suspicious, but either unable or simply not doing anything for the moment.

            Giles finally dispensed with his opponent, still not even sweating.  He looked up and startled, surprised to find Xander standing there.  Xander, despite only being like this for a few minutes, had already gotten used to the fact that nobody could see him.  Then he reminded himself he was in Giles' dream.

            Sort of.

            "Hey G-man!  Nice moves you got there," Xander commented.

            "Xan-Xander?!  What in the blazes are you doing…here?" Giles was confused at Xander's appearance in his mind.

            Xander shrugged.  That presence he felt was starting to give him the heeby jeebys.  "Remember that Master Fong I've been complaining about the past couple days?" Xander asked.

            Giles grimaced and almost rolled his eyes, but managed not to.

            "Yeah, well he turned me into a ghost," Xander succinctly finished.

            Giles stared at him for several long moments before blinking wildly and then did a double take.  "Ex-excuse me, he _what_?" Giles shouted.  "He…he-he actually…killed you?  But, we're supposed to be immortal!"

            Xander shrugged.  "I think what he actually did was kick my spirit out of my body, and then did…what did he call it?"

            :A finishing spell:

            "Yeah! Thanks…uh…G-man, who said that?" Xander froze.

            "Oh, that was Nightblade," Giles answered calmly.

            Xander blinked and almost did his own double take.  "Uh…isn't 'Nightblade' supposed to be a four foot long piece of obsidian that you have on your lap most of the time?"

            "Yes, but don't forget what Willow said about the Blades of Power being sentient.  They feel and think the same that you or I would.  They, he is an individual.  And he's been struggling to teach me how to control my physical body while in this meditation.  You know, controlling my heartbeat and all that.  Of course the first step he says is learning how to move in me 'dream body', or this form right now."

            "Cool," Xander commented, not following a word of it.

            Giles snorted and rolled his eyes.  "_You_ try explaining it!" he shouted at the ceiling.  Or…no, at a part of the wall.  Xander turned and looked and was amazed to see the obsidian blade set on the wall there like some kind of prized trophy.

            Xander realized with a start that that was where the presence he felt was coming from.

            The two men stared at the weapon for several long moments until it became quite clear to them that Nightblade simply wasn't going to respond and was not just thinking over its answer.

            Finally Giles looked at Xander, and then jumped a little, almost glaring at him.  Before Xander could ask what the problem was, Giles exclaimed on his own, "Good lord Xander!  What have you done to yourself?"

            "Huh?" Xander was puzzled, until he looked down at his body and startled a little himself.

            He was exactly as he had been in the dream when he had fully merged with the Hyena, his hands were claws as much as they were hands, his muscle mass was greatly increased, he felt his fangs with his tongue and running his claw/hand through it, felt his hair was much longer and he could guess that it was spotted too, like a Hyena's fur.

            "Oh…that.  Well, you remember Giles when I mentioned that stuff about me still being possessed by the Hyena?" Xander sheepishly asked.

            Giles stared at him for a moment, and then cleared his throat, but didn't actually say anything.  "Well, during that whole 'download' thing, we kind of…"

            :Merged: Nightblade finished.

            Both men looked up at the obsidian weapon, startled somewhat.  "Uh…yeah.  Anyway, it's still me, no…eating you or anything."

            "Yes, well, quite," Giles quite nervously just shuffled about after that.

            "So what exactly are you doing…here?" he finally asked after shuffling.

            Xander shrugged.  "Didn't know where Buffy and Willow are to bug them," he answered simply.

            "All right then," Giles impatiently huffed, "_how_ are you here?"

            "Oh," Xander scratched the back of his head, briefly wondering if that was part of the Hyena half or just his own embarrassment.

            "Well, I kind of flew from the Temple to the Training Gym building.  It's not that far really, and I already told you the old guy killed me and then did some kind of spell to keep me from being revived.  What was it again?" he asked Nightblade.  It did not reply.

            Giles sighed and rolled his eyes.  "HOW ARE YOU IN MY DREAM YOU STUPID CURR!" he yelled, making Xander jump.

            "Oh, that."

            "Yes _that_!"

            "Well, I saw you were meditating, and I remember how ghosts can sometimes enter people's dreams, so I decided to try it out, and…" Xander stopped talking when he saw the look on Giles' face.

            "Out!  Get out!  I don't care how, but get out NOW!!"  And just like that, Xander felt an unbelievable force push against him and he felt that swirling sensation again, but in reverse, and the next thing he knew, he was getting shot out of Giles' body faster than he could control himself.

            "Ok, okay!" Xander whined as he managed to get his air tumbling under control.  He went off in search of something else to do until the old man's spell wore off.

_*                       *                       *_

            It took a while, but Xander finally found the Main Gym, where he remembered the girls had been called to while he got chucked back to the Temple of Chi Magicks.  He floated down through the ceiling and then stopped and almost flew back out when a ball of energy flew past him.  He yelped as the energy blast narrowly missed him.

            He watched as the ball continued to curve and fly through the air, before suddenly becoming unstable and crashing and exploding on the floor.  Xander, confused, looked around the rest of the Gym until his eyes settled with relief and understanding on the group, including Goku, Buffy, and Willow.

            He quickly floated down towards them, making sure to be quiet.  Although since they couldn't see or hear him there really wasn't a point in doing that.  Until he saw Buffy shiver when he got within a few feet of her and then she looked around as though trying to find him.  When she didn't see him, she just shrugged and turned her attention back to Goku.

            Xander heard the comment about being used as target practice, and he wondered what lesson his friends had been previed to, and he had gotten shafted for by being a ghost.  He quickly got his answer as Willow answered that she would rather blast the wall until she got better and then immediately formed a ki blast about the size of a baseball and cast it out where it exploded against the wall.

            "Oh you have got to be kidding me!!" Xander shouted.  Of the things he had been _real_ anxious to learn was to shoot energy like Goku and all the other fighters did.

            The second he had shouted, Buffy stopped and started frantically looking around, although mostly in Xander's general direction than just anywhere.  Xander noticed this and stepping closer to the Slayer he asked in a more normal tone, "Uh, can you hear me Buff?"

            Her brow furrowed in concentration for a moment, but her eyes did not lock onto him, still scanning the room, but definitely for him.  After a minute, she shook her head and turned and started forming her own ki blasts.

            Before Xander could say or try anything more, he felt a horrible, gut-wrenching tug that actually did pull him through the air, then out of the Main Gym, through the air, getting faster and faster until everything was just one big blur, and the next thing he knew, he was back in his body, sitting up rigidly.

            "What the…!" were the first words out of his mouth as he sat up.  He quickly stood up when he noticed that Master Fong was there, seemingly waiting for him.

            "OK, again, what was that about?" Xander asked him.

            "Now that you are aware of your Spirit Energy, that which you used to fly with, among other things, we must focus on strengthening it.  Come with me!" Master Fong ordered, broking no argument as he immediately left the room.

            Xander didn't hesitate in chasing after him, as he knew that the entire Temple was nothing but one giant maze and he did _not_ want to get lost.

_*                       *                       *_

            When everyone got back to the apartment that evening, everyone was tired.  However, Buffy just told them to suck it up, sat them all down to dinner, and then dragged them back to the Private Gym for their nightly Training.

            "First thing's first," Buffy said as soon as the seal was over the gym, "Willow and I learned several valuable things today, and we're going to teach it to you guys so none of us are left behind.  First thing is how to better manipulate our ki, and then we'll get to the really fun stuff like flying and ki blasts."

            Xander definitely perked up at this.  "Neat!  Where do we start?" he asked eagerly.

            Buffy nodded, and smiled at his child-like enthusiasm.  "All right, Wills, you sure you got it?" she asked her friend, who nodded back, confident.  "Then you help Giles.  I'll take mister whiney pants."

            "Hey!" Xander exclaimed.  Buffy gave him a cutesy smile and asked him to challenge her with her eyes.  "Yeah, well I'd like to see how well you could handle the old guy!  I mean it Buff!  He's like this incredibly crabby…ugly, foul-tempered, disowned uncle that you never want to talk about at family reunions!  And as hard as Goku ever is on us, this guy would make Goku and probably even Willow's teachers at the Mage Tower whine and grumble a lot!"

            "But you're learning things Xander," Buffy countered, "You told us that yourself, despite all your whining.  And it's not like you were permanently damaged."

            "Yeah, immortality aside Buff, you killed me, **_3_** times!" Xander shouted.  They were walking to the other side of the rectangular cube that was the Training Gym.  Giles and Willow had gone to the side opposite.

            "And you think I enjoyed that?" Buffy stopped and stared at him.

            He stopped and closed his eyes, fighting to control the sudden rage within him.  He used to call it the Hyena.  Now it was his temper.  "Part of me…yeah Buff, part of me thinks you enjoyed doing it," Xander huskily whispered, not looking at her.

            Buffy walked forward slowly, and then turned Xander around to look at her.  He startled when he saw tears coming from her eyes.  Real tears, no acting could do that.  "Buff…" he tried to say, but she interrupted him with a shake of her head.

            "Slapping you wouldn't have done a thing Xander, and beating you up to knock some sense into your head also wouldn't have worked," she explained through her falling tears.  "Given that what we usually do here _is_ beat each other up anyway.  I want you to see the big picture here Xand.  We are going to be fighting for our _lives_.  If we don't get as strong as we possibly can here and now, if we don't learn all that we can from this place…we're going to die."

            She glared at him anew, her tears already drying.  "Now I don't care if you were just trying to make things light like you usually do, or if you expected us to come to your rescue and have me or Giles trade places with you, but I'm sorry, that is not going to happen.  Now I don't care if you have every reason in the world to hate this teacher of yours.  You will continue to get lessons from him and learn all that he can possibly teach you.  And no more complaining or whining."

"I killed you because you wouldn't shut up about the problems you were having with his personality and teaching style.  Thankfully after the third time you got the hint and finally did shut up.  Now I'm giving you a new order and hopefully it won't take killing you even once to get it past your hyena-possessed skull.  Screw liking him.  Learn from him.  No more questions and no more complaints, even to yourself.  If you're feeling bad about something he said or did, then think about this.  In three months, we're going to die.  No ifs, ands, or buts.  Unless, we get strong enough that we could beat Goku.  We beat Goku; we can win, and live.  Any questions?"

Xander shook his head to the negative.

            "Good.  Now, power up and I'll start showing you how to project your ki from your body," Buffy told him and proceeded to demonstrate and show Xander everything she and Willow had learned that afternoon.

            It took roughly the same amount of time, because Buffy would not let up for an instant, insisting on the same method that Goku and his friends had used in teaching her and Willow.

            As an added incentive, Buffy also described what it was like to fly under your own power, as well as giving the tidbits of help that she had received from the others in controlling ones flight.  While Xander practiced with manipulating his own ki, she sometimes formed energy balls which she then juggled with or just played around with, providing further incentive to master the "boring stuff" so he could move on to the "fun stuff".

            Five hours later, the entire Slayer Team was on the same level of ki manipulation, and the men were ready for flying lessons.  Lessons that lasted about two minutes before they were doing their own method of aerial stunts like Buffy and Willow had done.  Willow surmised that it was like she had said when they first discovered how to use their ki.  Because they were in a universe with so much _less_ energy, their own energy, their ki was in the equivalent of a weightless environment and was flying, which made it easier for them to adjust to actually flying.

            "Now comes the fun part," Buffy grinned as she formed another energy ball, the entire team with her now in the center part of the gym.  Within half an hour, both guys were flinging energy balls and shooting beams of ki energy like they had done so all their lives.  However, they couldn't, yet, finely control the way the energy attacks moved like Buffy and Willow could.

            "So what should we do now?" Xander asked, once he and Giles really were fully caught up with Buffy and Willow on skill level.

            "Well… we have a couple options," Willow answered, "We do what we normally do and train in building our strength some more, or if you guys have learned some things that Buffy and I haven't, you could try and teach us about it and how to use it."

            "Well," Xander scratched the back of his head, "remember what I told you Master Fong was going to try and teach me today?  It's not exactly something that can be easily taught.  Especially when you have to be a ghost for a couple hours to even find out how to begin learning it."

            "What is it?" Buffy asked, curious.

            "He said to call it 'chi', and I was somewhat lost in how the explanation goes, but basically souls give off several different types of energy waves, ki, or life energy among them.  Another is what he called Spirit energy, which I think is like ecto-energy or whatever.  Only, this isn't restrained, but depending on what our lives our like, it is either strong or weak.  If it's strong, it always has the chance of getting stronger.  If it gets strong enough, in the right ways, then you could do similar things like what we can do with ki."

            "Really?" Buffy blurted.  "Wow!  Giles, you have any thoughts that you could add to that?"

            Giles stared off in space for a couple moments, for a second one would think he hadn't heard her, but he finally replied, "Nightblade believes that the reason Master Fong had to turn Xander into a ghost in order to master his…you called it chi correct?  The reason that Xander had to be a ghost in order to master his chi is because Xander's was on the weak side.  For the rest of us, less than drastic measures could probably be taken."

            "Cool," Buffy said.  Then she turned back to Xander and seemed to be asking a question with her expression.

            "Hey!  I'm just learning this myself!  There's no way I could teach another person.  Maybe I could tutor, but…" Xander stopped as Buffy continued to stare at him.  He finally realized what she was proposing, and the thought made him slouch.  He remembered his promise to her just five and a half hours ago.  "I'll call him," he finally said, sounding depressed as he pulled his Global out.

            "You can call him tomorrow, or at least mention the possibility," Buffy told him.  "In the mean time…why don't you choose what we do next Xand?"

            Xander smiled thankfully at his Team leader and nodded his agreement, putting his Global away.  Then his smile became more savage as he said, "Sparring.  Let's test these new energy and flying powers of ours."

            Buffy grinned right back, her's a bit more mocking and casually confident at the same time.  Xander subconsciously labeled it her "Slayer smirk".

            "Free for all, pairs, or team on one?" she asked.

            "Free for all," Giles and Willow said at the same time Xander did, causing the Warrior X to look surprised at them predicting him.  Buffy had the same look on her face that his other two friends did and he couldn't let that go so he said, "Am I really that predictable?"

            "Yep," they all agreed.

            "Fine, I'll show you!" he shouted and immediately started powering up.

            The others scattered, and started powering up themselves.

            Despite his strength being nearly the same level, Willow, and especially Buffy managed to power up faster than Xander could, but that didn't really matter since he had got enough of a head start to make them even…well, almost.  Buffy was clearly stronger given what their senses told them, but they had been through this enough times to know that power wasn't everything.

            Once he was fully powered, Xander immediately started tracking the Slayer, and leaped backwards in the nearly 50 Gs, an putting some "power" behind it so that he actually landed on the far wall instead of the floor, and used it to ricochet off to where Slayer was.

            Slayer was ready for him and actually met his charge part way, creating enough force with that first impact that a concussion wave sounded.  The both of them were so intent on their sparring that they didn't even notice.  Willow and Giles did though.

            Looking at the Watcher, the Mage quickly floated over next to him and before he could perceive it as any kind of attack, she asked, "Giles?  Just how powerful do you think they are now?  I mean… look at them?  Do…do you think it's possible we might just be able to beat Goku?"

            Watcher looked at her for a moment before turning his gaze to the other two, and then back to the Mage.  "I'm…not sure Willow… but in this place, anything is possible.  Let's catch up, shall we?"

            Mage smirked and nodded, charging her ki and then taking off at top speed for the sparring par.  Watcher was right behind her.

            Slayer, who had just knocked Warrior X back far enough for both of them to catch their breaths, suddenly tensed, and ducked down while swinging her arm back to catch the Mage in the gut, knocking the wind out of her as well as slamming her in the reverse direction.  Moving with the momentum of her counter, Slayer gave a mid-air roundhouse kick at Watcher's head, who narrowly managed to stop himself and lean his body back enough that she didn't even graze him.

            Realizing that she missed, Slayer started to jump back, but Watcher moved faster, kicking her full in the torso and knocking her back into the Mage, who was just getting up.

            _'Giles is getting good,'_ Slayer idly thought as she shifted her ki to pick herself up.

            Tapping into her well spring of martial arts knowledge, thanks to the implant, Buffy shot down through the air at the Watcher and started laying into him while avoiding his sword strikes and attempts at countering her own moves.

            Warrior X jumped into the fray, or was about to but stopped a bare inch before Watcher would have decapitated him.  Before he could gear up another charge though, he felt a tap on his shoulder and heard Mage say just behind him, "Oh Xander."

            He turned, only to get a fist to the face followed by a kick to the chest, both of which hurt like hell.  When he got up off the ground, he saw a red haired fury coming straight at him, surrounded by both ki and magical flames.  "Oh boy," he mumbled before kipping to his feet and mostly tried to avoid Mage's raging charge.

            Mage saw what he was planning to do but anticipated every one of his moves, and rapidly narrowed down on his position before he could actually avoid her.  Leading with her foot, Mage was suddenly shocked to find the tables quickly turned on her as Warrior X grabbed her kicking leg and using her ongoing momentum, slammed her down into the floor, where she bounced upward from the excess force, and Warrior X leaped up into the air and kicked her in the torso into the nearby wall, which she hit and slid down in pain.

            He almost ran up to her to see if his friend was all right, but Slayer and Watcher's ongoing battle soon distracted him to the point where he was suddenly right in the middle of it and using every iota of his power that he could just to keep from getting instantly killed.

            Mage barely even had a clue what just happened to her.  She was stunned, but also, her mind was trying to calculate how Warrior X could have possibly countered her like he did.  He might have been more powerful than her, definitely in raw strength that was the case, and maybe even faster, but it was just too amazing with how he turned her own attack against her so easily.  She groaned as she tried to direct her power back into her muscles, straining against the brief loss and lethargy of being slammed into a wall gives you.  Groaning, she managed to get to her feet, still trying to orient her self enough to do anything else.

            Warrior X meanwhile was also trying to figure out how he had so easily turned the tables on Mage, so he could do it again.  Although it seemed to be turning out it was a fluke of instinct, which was useless in his sparring with Slayer and Watcher, who were more intent on going after each other, and keeping him in the middle of it.

            He would duck down to avoid Slayer's high kick, only for her to change it at the last second into a up-swinging sweeper kick, forcing him to roll to the side, where Watcher swung his obsidian blade in a downward arch, which Slayer blocked with her katana.  From just the look, it seemed as though the other two were completely ignoring him and he just happened to be there, but when several more things like that where he tried to roll out of the way and one or both of them moved in the same direction just one too many times…

            Finally Xander thought of the one direction that he could move in that they could not make it look like coincidence.  He suddenly, not even making it look like an avoidance of Slayer's attack, jumped and flew straight up at the ceiling.  When he was there, he inverted himself and made it look like he was standing on the ceiling, although it was incredibly more difficult to do as he was flying against the direction of the intense gravity.

            Slayer paused and looked up at him, and smirked in that parody of Goku's smirk.  Warrior X was beginning to think of that as a "Slayer grin" and it also told him that it certainly was no accidents that had kept him in the middle of their fight.  Warrior X gave her a lopsided grin, then drew his own katana, and waited.

            Slayer looked back down at Watcher, who looked at her, then back up at Warrior X.  Then he nodded and together they took off, and then inverted themselves on the ceiling with the Warrior.

            With a whole new perspective to gain control of, they all stopped actively attacking and instead started circling one another.  Because part of this new perspective was making sure that your feet touched the ceiling instead of open air, as gravity was wont to do.

            A couple minutes of circling later, they all felt like they had gotten their "ceiling legs" and started moving closer together in order to begin the sparring match anew.

            Warrior X was the one to attack first, running at Slayer and jumping right into it with her, both their arms and legs flying against one another in a rapid pattern of attack and block.

            Slayer, normally able to just knock him out with one combo, was severely distracted at the moment with keeping her feet on the ceiling, as well as fending off two attackers once Watcher joined Warrior X against her, but from the opposite direction.  It spoke highly of her skill and abilities that she lasted the few minutes she did before a blow to her back by Watcher sent her careening, uncontrolled to the floor where she crashed, and slumped into a brief unconsciousness.

            Surprised at the turn of events, Warrior X almost mistook the training for being over…when Mage suddenly joined them on the ceiling and Watcher turned back to him.  He grinned ferally as he let his instincts rise to the surface, which relished the upcoming events.  His ki flame burst brighter than ever around him as he waited for the others to attack.

            She wasn't even down thirty seconds before the Slayer managed to revive, hurting all over, in particular from the places where she had received heavy or hard impacts.  Groaning, and being careful of her bruised ribs, she knew the feeling by now, she got back to her hands and knees, and then even more carefully got back to her feet.

            Her 6th sense suddenly informed her of the ongoing battle on the ceiling and she looked up to see Mage head rush Warrior X while Watcher tried to bracket the Warrior against her.

            She tried to take a step forward into a jump, but the pain gave her a sudden head rush, making her pause and gasp without sound for a moment or two as the pain washed throughout her.  After a moment, she steeled herself, and took another step.  This time she was ready for the pain and braced herself against it.  She stopped walking and looked back up, breathing heavily.

            She knew she couldn't rejoin, not at her current disadvantage.  Even Giles could clean her clock and throw her around like a rag doll in her present state.  But what could she…

            She almost slapped herself.  Of course!

            She powered up to her max, letting her energy surround her and fill her body.  Then, focusing, but not as intensely so as to control it perfectly, Buffy formed three separate ki balls.

            Watching the movements, she tagged one ball to each of her teammates.  Then she fired.

            It was almost fully draining, given her already straining injuries, but it worked!  The others had hardly even noticed she'd gotten up, and apparently had thought her forming the energy attacks had just been her powering back up and ready to rejoin the battle most likely.  They found out differently when they were all struck simultaneously by an explosion of energies right to their backs.

            "Ahhhh!" they all cried as they lost their concentration and were all severely injured, falling to the floor after the three explosions wracked their bodies.

            In the silent aftermath, nobody was quite sure who was the more wasted.  Not even Buffy, who was now hunched over from the pain of her injuries coupled with less than her needed energy level.

            "OK, unfair!" Mage groaned out as she started trying to move her body again.

            "Some warning…would have been nice…Buffy," Watcher grunted as he got to his knees then his feet to stand.

            The Slayer just shrugged.

            Warrior X got to his feet in silence.  The hyena, or what was left of it as a separate entity, was burning with rage at the blind-sided attack.  It demanded retribution and would not let go until it had it.  Calling up everything he had learned about 'chi' that day to his mind, X cast about for any way to use it as a weapon, but at first was at a total loss.  This just made him angrier, his fist clenching in fury.

            Almost in response to his fury, his clenched fist began to glow slightly.  He never noticed, but he did notice, for the moment, he didn't feel anything but the power of his rage.  Blinded by it, he charged forward, yelling, his glowing fist leading the charge.

            Slayer and the others turned to see what was the matter with their friend when they saw him running straight for Slayer, faster than she could dodge.  His fist hit, connecting with the center of her chest.

            There was a semi-explosion of energy before Slayer was seen blasted back, at a very high speed, straight for the wall behind her, …which had been more than halfway across the room.  She landed, and then crashed against the wall, staying upright against it as the force of Warrior X's attack had driven her _into_ it, cracking some of the wall tiles and creating a mini-crater in it.

            Looking closer, one could see the Slayer was either totally knocked out, or dead, as her eyes were rolled up in her head, but the lids still open, showing white.

            At the sight, Xander snapped out of his rage and just stared, open-faced.

            _'I did that?'_ he had to ask himself, stunned.

            Giles and Willow stared, also stunned, for a couple minutes, sometimes looking back and forth between the new wall decoration and the one who had put it there.  Then they finally processed what had just happened.

            "Xander!!" Willow screeched, totally incensed at what the Warrior had done.

            "I-I-I-I…I'm sorry?" he stuttered, uncertainly.

            "Sorry?!  _Why_ did you do that?  As far as I cared, the sparring match was over and we would rest for a bit before moving on!  And Buffy obviously didn't expect you to blind side her like that…" Willow accused him.

            "Blind side!!" he exploded, his rage coming back to the fore.  "What the hell do you think it was that she just did to us?  Huh?  She!  Attacked!  ME!  And I got retribution for it.  Eye for an eye and all that Willow!  Besides, WE'RE IMMORTAL!" he shouted.

            Willow stopped and seemed to take a step back from her lifelong friend.  What snapped Xander back to reality though, was that she was looking at him the same way that she had when he had let the Hyena go two weeks ago.  He didn't say anything more, but they could tell he was sorry for what he'd said and done by the way his shoulders slumped.

            A soft groan brought all of theirs attention back to Buffy.  Amazed beyond belief, they watched as she groaned again, a little louder, and then her head moved.  None of them had seen the customary golden glow that indicated the Powers bringing someone back to life.  She moved again, and that seemed to dislodge her from the hole in the wall and she immediately fell forward, making a soft and sharp impact sound as she did.  The same sound a watermelon makes when dropped from a two-story building.

            She grunted in pain however, and then groaned again as she moved to get her arms underneath her.  No one else had moved.  They were just too amazed and stunned at the resilience of their friend, that she was still alive instead of being killed on impact, to even allow the thought of rushing to her aid even enter their minds.

            Just as she had gotten her hands in a good lifting position, Buffy almost fell forward again, her energy way beyond low, and her muscles, even when still, were crying in pure agony.  Then, when no one could possibly notice, as she opened her eyes, they were filled with a soft gold-yellow light, it was not the same as the Powers, but before it faded completely, it seemed to make Buffy just strong enough to get to her feet, but no more unfortunately.

            As the Slayer and Team leader slowly walked/hunched/stumbled/dragged herself back to the rest of her team, said team did nothing but stair, their eyes wide and their mouths hanging open.  When she had finally crossed the distance, she was standing a couple feet from Xander, the other two a number of feet behind him.

            She looked him in the eye, and he almost flinched, expecting to see righteous and vengeful anger guaranteeing a great deal of pain for him.  Instead, he had to do a double take as he saw instead, awe-filled wonderment and excitement in her eyes and face.

            "Xander…" Buffy half-croaked, "…that was AMAZING!" she said, as her voice got stronger and firmer.  Now they all did double takes.

            "Buffy… are you all right?" Giles asked.

            She gave him "that" look, and bit out, "Oh yes Giles, I'm absolutely wonderful, I feel like doing hand stands and running around the world fifteen times over.  What the hell do you think Giles?  I'm beat up, bloody, at least three, maybe five, of my ribs are broken, and my energy is entirely depleted.  _Ofcourse_ I'm _not_ all right!!"

            Then she turned back to Xander and became excited again.  "You've _got_ to teach me how to do that Xan!  That was amazing!  I don't think Goku even knows that technique to teach us.  Master Fong taught you that, didn't he, that whole chi thing you were talking about earlier, right?"

            "Uh…yeah," Xander dumbly replied after a small silence.

            "Great," Buffy nodded, still excited.  "Now that me and Wills are pretty much done with 2nd Training, we can start to focus on fighting techniques instead of just endurance.  Although we're definitely still going to train for endurance, we're also going to start looking and applying every fighting technique we can possibly learn here.  Xander, you _can_ teach me how to do that, right?"

            "Uh…"

            "Xander."

            "Sure, not a problem," he said immediately.

            Buffy paused, grimaced momentarily as she turned to look him more fully in the face, and then repeated in a more deadpan tone, "Xander."

            "Buff…it just happened!" he suddenly exclaimed.  "I don't even remember what all I did.  All I know is one minute, I'm up there," he pointed at the ceiling, "sparring between Wills and Giles, then I feel an explosion on my back and I fall to the floor.  Then I… then I kind of lost my temper.  In a major way I guess, and I just struck out.  I'm sorry."

            Buffy grimaced again and just stared at him.

            Then she let out a disappointed sigh and started to hobble to the MTC, muttering the password to unlock the gym as she did so.  As she walked she explained to the others, "We're done for tonight.  Lets all go to the Clinic and get patched up.  Tomorrow though, I don't care what that blade says Giles or what anyone else had planned, we're all going with Xander to see this Master Fong.  And we're getting him to train all of us."

_*                       *                       *_

            The very next morning, barely ten hours after leaving their late night training session, the entire Slayer Team were standing on the front steps of the Temple of Chi Magicks.  Willow was impressed by the design and was saying how impressive all the inlaid magicks were, engrained into the very structure and materials itself.  Buffy just thought it looked cool.

            "Yes, well, seeing as how both you and Willow skipped out on meeting with Goku this morning, don't you think we should proceed?" Giles finally lost his patience.

            "Oh, Goku won't even try to contact us for another few hours yet Giles.  I think you're forgetting exactly how early it is," Buffy scolded her Watcher.

            "Guys," Xander waved them on, leading the way, "You have to trust me on this.  Follow me, do not wander off, do not look behind you at a noise, do not look around corners, and for the love of god keep up!  Once we're past the entrance… labyrinth does not begin to cover the inside of this place.  Just keep your eyes on me, and remember to keep up."

            They all nodded and stayed single-file directly behind him.

            Ofcourse after the first five twists and turns, Buffy, who was at the back of the line, started to get bored and started looking around, trusting her sixth sense to allow her to keep track of where she was as much as where Xander and the others were going.

            On a complete whim, just as the group went left, Buffy went to the right and down that passage… and appeared a few meters ahead of the Team; they were walking toward her from her right.

            "What the…?" Xander stopped and quickly looked back.

            Buffy paused and looked at them.  "Cool," she said, smiling at the novelty of it.

            "Buff?  Is that really you?" Xander asked nervously.

            She glared at him.  "Why would you have to ask if it's really me Xander?  We are not in a place were anything completely, malevolently evil exists.  At least not in a way that it could take my place like that.  I just took a different corner and…then you were there," she pointed at the group.

            "Uh, I thought I told you to _not_ do that!" Xander shouted, bordering on panicked.

            Buffy rolled her eyes.

            "Chill out, its not big thing…" Buffy trailed off as she continued walking straight ahead, and then appeared even further down the corridor, coming from the same side of the passageway.

            "Buff, for the love of god, stop doing that!" Xander shouted, and started running to catch up to her.  Willow and Giles quickly followed.  Buffy, instead of listening to Xander, just turned around and went back the way she came.

            She and Xander almost collided, even though she had not appeared where she had been the time before, but they both managed to stop themselves.

            "Sorry," Buffy apologized.  Not really apologetic, but not sarcastic or cynical either.

            "That's okay, but Buffy, you really have to trust me on this.  It's way too easy to get lost in here.  Just…please, please, _please_ follow me and don't go off on your own anymore?  Please?"

            "All right, all right.  Where do we go from here?" she asked.

            Xander looked around, frowning in concentration, then turned to the left and pointed straight ahead, where they could all see the Chi Master's workshop.  "Oh," Buffy replied.

            All four walked in together, but they were the only ones there.  Xander didn't really seem too surprised or upset by this, so the others also took it in stride.  Five minutes later, just as Buffy's patience was about to run out with her friend, Master Fong came in from the entrance opposite the one the Slayer Team came in through.

            He stopped when he saw all of them together like that, and if looks could kill, Xander would be a smudge stain on the floor at the moment.

            "Ai-yah…!  I cannot take on more students.  I have my hands full enough with _you_!" he pointed his finger at Xander.  "Send your, your friends away.  You must continue your training…!"

            "I apologize Master Fong," Buffy suddenly stepped forward with a bow.  "It was I who ordered Xander to bring us to you."

            Master Fong glared at the blonde Slayer.

            "I am Buffy…er, Slayer.  Xander's Team Leader.  I would like to humbly request that you train… well, all of us." Buffy continued.

            Master Fong continued to glare, and then something in his demeanor changed.  Nothing physically, because he didn't move a millimeter, even his glare remained physically the same.  But still…he no longer regarded all of them with annoyance and frustration, instead it seemed more…curiosity.

            Finally, he walked over to a box on the cluttered counter, opened it, and pulled out the crystal egg that he'd had Xander hold the day before.  He quickly walked over to Willow and gave it to her, telling her, "Hold this."

            She did.  A bright soft green glow the flooded the entire crystal with light burst forth the moment it was in her palm.  Willow blinked in surprise, and Master Fong seemed to be satisfied with that.

            Next he took the crystal chi-detector to Giles who took it without having to be told to do so.  Again, the entire egg was filled to the brim with glowing energy, except that at the very center, not affecting the rest in any way, was a core of black the color of the night.  Master Fong took some time staring at the obsidian blade resting on Giles' back, but finally he took it and then walked towards Buffy.

            He held the crystal before her and she asked, "What is it?"

            Master Fong showed far more patience in his answer this time than he did when answering Xander the day before.  "It measures the amount of shen your soul emits.  It shows how much chi you have."

            "Oh, cool," Buffy commented and took the egg with her right hand.

            Instantly, there was a flash of light so bright that it rivaled the "flash" talked about when atomic devices go off.  What made the difference, besides no radiation, was that the light stayed on, and in Buffy's right hand.

            "Ai-YAH!!!!" Master Fong screamed.  He wasn't the only one.  Willow wordlessly screamed, covering her eyes in pain, Giles cried out briefly, turning his head to the side, but Xander was cursing like a sailor that had just lost a bet.  Or an eye.

            "Shit!  Fuck!  Shit-fucking butt-monkey!!" he cried, holding his eyes and turning away from the light.

            Ironically, Buffy wasn't in the least little bit bothered by the light being emitted from the crystal egg she was holding.  "So…uh, what does this mean?" she asked.

            After a couple more minutes for their eyes to adjust (or be healed by the Powers) to the brightness, they risked looking once more at Buffy and the chi-detector.  It looked like the girl was holding an actual sun in her hand, although with the tinting a little more towards the yellow-spectrum, but not entirely.  They couldn't even distinguish the hand, or the arm holding the crystal it was so bright.

            "Please, drop crystal," Master Fong requested.

            Buffy shrugged and set the crystal on the floor.  The moment she stopped touching it, the light finally ceased, and everyone save Slayer was left blinking to clear the spots out of their eyes for a few minutes.

            "Unbelievable," Master Fong huskily whispered, after his eyes had cleared up he picked up the chi-detector and returned it to the box he had gotten it out of.  "Your chi is, pure.  The purest that I have ever heard of.  And powerful.  Very, very, _very_ powerful."

            Master Fong was silent for a moment.

            "I will accept the responsibility of teaching you all how to use your chi the way I teach Alexander.  I can do no more than that."

            Buffy immediately bowed at the waist, her hands held together in front of her.  "I, we thank you very much for this honor Master Fong.  We will not disappoint you.  I promise."

            "The only ones who would be disappointed would be yourselves if you failed," Master Fong corrected her.  "Now, come, we will continue with yesterdays exercises in order to begin teaching all of you."

            The Slayer Team quickly followed the Chi Master out of the sanctuary.

_*                       *                       *_

            Master Fong took them to a training area of the Temple, which looked like it was straight out of a Kung Fu movie.  There was a matted gym with paper walls that slid away to reveal a small courtyard with rocks, bridges, trees, and a stream running through it.

            First off, he got Xander started meditating.  The difficult part came that he had to meditate while balancing himself on a pointed rock.  Fortunately he was seated cross-legged on a wooden platform.  His balancing wasn't so good.

            Giles just went and meditated by the stream and Master Fong really didn't seem to mind that.

            Willow, he took back to his sanctuary and showed her his library, where she immediately started reading every one of them.  Buffy, for those few minutes, just started to warm herself up in the gym.

            Shortly, Master Fong returned, and as Buffy was doing a kata, Xander was getting yelled at and being put into a different, much more difficult exercise and then left to himself to do it successfully.  Eventually anyway.

            Once he was through with Xander, Master Fong approached Buffy, watching for the last few minutes of her kata.  She finished, having known he was there the whole time, but concentrating more on her warm up.  After she was done, she turned to face him and bowed respectfully to him.

            A faint, glimmer of a smile crossed the Chi Master's face, before settling on a more neutral expression.

            "The witch I can understand wanting to be my pupil.  The one known as Watcher, he will need discipline if he is to master his weapon.  You I cannot figure out.  Why do you want me to add to your training?" Master Fong asked.

            Buffy shrugged and replied, "Normally, I wouldn't.  In fact I'd be doing the bare minimum to pass here.  Normally.  But 3 months after they send us home…we're going to have to compete in the Tournament, and word has it that only someone of Goku's power can even stand a chance.  Xander showed a potential last night in Training.  A potential for a power that is more powerful than anything we've seen yet, and that was only after one lesson.  I want to protect my friends and ensure that they'll live, no matter how many Tournaments we go into.  And to do that, I need to become as powerful as I can become."

            Buffy paused and took a couple steps forward.  "I need you to teach me the power that you are teaching Xander.  This isn't about the power, and in my book, it's never about power.  It's always about what you do with it."

            Master Fong nodded.  "Good answer," he said slowly.

            Buffy waited, half expecting him to shout out that while it was a good answer, it was still the wrong one.  He surprised her again.

            "You do not need my training."

            Buffy stared for a few seconds, and then did a double take and blinking her eyes to make sure they were seeing right.  "Huh?" she blurted.

            "Your power, your chi is so great, so powerful already, that it will shape itself.  I have heard the boy say you are the Slayer.  As a Slayer, you have several basic powers, but what you, and many others do not know is that the Slayer's powers extend beyond the physical.  Your life force, your chi, your very soul perhaps, is a representative of you being a Slayer.  All you need from me is knowledge of how to focus your mind, body, and heart.  Your power will handle the rest."

            Buffy nodded, understanding.  "But…well, once I know…what to do…how do I make myself stronger?  With the technique I mean."

            "Ai yah!  I just told you!  Power will take care of it!" Master Fong lost patience and walked out to the garden.  Frowning, Buffy followed and he sat her down in a rather peaceful corner of the garden and began to instruct her in a meditation technique that would allow her to fully access her 'chi'.

_*                       *                       *_

Fourth Week 

            Willow was surprised to get a call telling her to go straight to the Mages Tower as soon as she could, and before breakfast too.  She at least ate something, knowing that if she was going anywhere for Training today, she would need at least some energy.  She decided to wear her blue overalls today, deciding that she was tired of the black.  Then she left for the Mage Tower the moment she was finished and the others were off.

            When she walked through to Amana's office, she was surprised to only find the normal automations there that cleaned and maintained the office.  Concerned, she only searched the place long enough to confirm she was the only living thing in there, and other than some herbs and plants she was, before she realized what the message she'd gotten really meant.

            It had said to go straight to the Mages Tower, nothing about Amana's office, or any of the training rooms she'd been in so far.  "Oh dear!" Willow blurted worriedly as she hurried to the MTC and placed her hand on the panel.  "Uh, Mage, Mages Tower…Main Entrance?"

            To her immediate relief, the portal activated, meaning that there really was a main entrance to this place, and that was probably where she was supposed to meet her teachers.

            She stepped forward and walked through the glowing red circle…

            …into an empty steel and cement courtyard of sorts.  Well, not entirely empty as she saw four figures in the exact center of the area.  She walked forward some, and then looked behind her and saw what she knew beyond all doubt was the outside of the Mage Tower.  Basically it was a tall, white and silver obelisk with windows at intervals.  Of course Willow recalled what Amana had told her that first day so long ago, that on an almost constant basis, the Mage Tower was being shifted so all of the floors were numbered starting from the very top.

            Once she had taken her surroundings in, Willow shifted her attention fully to the four figures apparently waiting for her.

            Two of them, in the center of the line of four, she knew very well as they were Amana Grael and her other teacher of the Arch Mages, Archer.  The one standing next to Amana, and only reached up to her waist in maximum height, appeared to be of a partially humanoid species, but also took a great deal after the rodents of Earth, at least in appearance.

            It had a brown furry tail, and in fact most of its skin, all that she could see of it really, was covered in dark brown fur.  It had beady, but very intelligent eyes, and a snout-like mouth and nose, but again, covered in brown fur, save the nose.  It wore a loose-fitting tunic, similar to Amana's in design, but made for it's own stature.  All in all, it reminded Willow of a character in a book she had read in elementary school called "Mole".

            The figure standing next to Archer was actually as tall, or maybe a little bit taller than the Minotaur.  It appeared that way at first anyway, but as Willow walked closer to the group…the fourth person's height didn't change.  _At_ _all_.  His height stayed exactly the same as she closed the distance from the MTC to standing right in front of him.  Willow realized after thinking about it that it was more than likely some kind of natural illusion spell.

            Besides that, the figure was more than impressive enough.  Its skin was a golden bronze color, but more than that it seemed to glow with the essence of magic through every pore of its skin.  He, Willow now realized the creature was displaying but masculine features, was dressed in, if she had to guess, Babylonian style garments, but more gaudy and extravagant than anything the Babylonians could have ever done or had.

            Mostly it was a white silk loin cloth lined with real gold thread, a bronze, silver, gold, and jewel necklace that would make the Pharaoh's of ancient Egypt drool with envy, and bands of solid metal that Willow couldn't identify around his forearms and calves.  He was barefoot.  He was also wearing a mask that she knew she should recognize, but could not for the moment.

            Willow made sure to remember etiquette when she spoke.

            "Teachers," she bowed.  "You summoned me?"

            "Yes, we did.  Half an hour ago," Amana replied.  Something more in the words than the tone told Willow that she had been expected to appear immediately.

            "I apologize for my less than prompt arrival Teacher," Willow spoke.  "I was having breakfast as I received the summons.  Knowing our training, I felt it would be better to have the energy necessary to complete whatever exercises you would have for me."

            "Smart girl," the one with the gold magical skin retorted.  Willow held her tongue.

            Amana just gave the man a look.  Nothing was meant by it; just a glance to see that he had spoken.  Willow wondered what this was all about, but still held her tongue.

            The masked head then turned to look directly at the young Mage and she felt as if the spotlight of the omniverse had just turned on her.  And she was never one to be put in the spotlight.

            "But then again, maybe she isn't quite as quick-witted as you said Arch Mage 2, if she doesn't even respond to an alluded insult," he added in a very insulting tone.

            Willow recalled seeing Xander knocking Buffy out with a chi-punch, and then how the Slayer handled the resulting confrontation with the Warrior.  The Mage, Resolve Face (capitol letters) in place, turned and looked the man in the face, as she could not clearly see his eyes.  She still did not say anything.

            "Have something to say mage-let?" he asked with his tone the same.  "Then say it."

            "I would not presume to defend the Arch Mage when she can very well defend herself, and I would also have the gall to presume that she and Archer would not summon me to introduce me to anyone that _would_ insult or insinuate anything wrongful or negative about herself or her teaching methods.  As for my wits, I keep them about me well enough to know when to follow etiquette and when to turn someone into a toad for insulting myself or those that I respect as friends and colleagues.  Is there anything else that you would like to insinuate about myself sir Arch Mage?"

            Everyone stared, even the 'Mole' creature, at the incensed Mage and the calmly staring man that Willow had called an Arch Mage.

            "Perceptive too," he concluded the conversation with a nod at Amana.

            "Willow," Amana caught her pupil's attention after a moment to let the air clear, "Allow me to introduce, as you have no doubt already guessed, Archer's and mine colleagues in title of Arch Mage.  This," she gestured to her side at the mole creature, whom bowed upon being recognized, "is Arch Mage 4, Milo."

            Willow's eyebrow quirked all on it's own at the simple name, and the 4th Arch Mage caught the gesture and apparently knew what it meant.

            "It's actually sort of a self-chosen name.  My race, when they come of age, chooses a name for themselves.  It signifies them becoming their own person, instead of just the offspring of their parents.  I chose Milo." Milo told her.  His voice was actually very humanlike, although the language he spoke was anything but English.

            Willow nodded and smiled, hoping that he got the body language in that she understood what he meant.

            "And this Willow," Amana said almost reverently, and gesturing at the gold-bronze skinned man, "is Arch Mage 1.  Marduk."

            Willow froze.  Not literally, but all higher-brain functions ceased completely.  She took a couple breaths to get enough oxygen to restart her mind, and then swallowed the lump of bile in her throat preventing the O2 from reaching her lungs.  Finally, enough of her brain was working once more that she could operate her speech centers.

            "mm-mmmm-M-mm-mar-Mar-d-d-d-dd-duk…mm-Marduk!  Th-th-the Babylonian god of MAGIC!!!!" Willow screeched.

            "The same," the man in the golden mask said in a too-casual tone for Willow's taste.

            She now easily recognized that mask.  It was an almost exact replica of one found in an archaeological dig in where ancient Babylon was thought to have been.  Specifically what was discovered to be one of the temples of Marduk.  The mask represented the ancient god's presence in ceremonies it was thought.

            She just couldn't handle this right now.  Without thinking, she lifted her left hand and shouted at the same time, "Just hold on for one minute here!"  She did not notice the wave of green energy that left her hand as she did so, but she did notice that afterward, all but herself and one other creature in the courtyard completely stopped moving.

            For half a second the Mage just stood there trying to absorb everything, and then she noticed what she had just done.  "Whoops," she mumbled to herself, looking at the frozen forms of Amana and Archer.

            "Whoops is right young mage-let," Marduk said sarcastically, causing the girl to jump slightly.  He noticed this and said, "What?  You didn't think that your magic, no matter how powerful or skillful would actually affect me, a _god_ of magic itself, did you?"

            "Uh… actually, I didn't mean to do that.  It just…kind of happened…" Willow replied meekly.

            Marduk's head tilted to the side, as if he were trying to get a better look at her.  Or he couldn't believe what she had just said.  It was difficult to tell with the mask on.

            After several moments of this, the god shrugged and reached his well-muscled arms up and released some kind of catch behind his head as he said, "Well, it's their own damn fault.  That's kind of the reason that Amana and Archer brought all of us together like this…" Marduk paused as he fully removed the mask from his head and face…to reveal a handsome but very _human_ face.  He had unruly black hair, dark brown eyes, and his bronze complexion continued to influence his face.  In fact, Willow could easily believe that he was from the Middle East.

            "Your powers are growing and evolving very quickly Willow," Marduk continued, walking over to a bench at the edge of the courtyard.  Willow unconsciously followed.

            "I've heard Amana and Archer having several conversations like that about me," Willow meekly replied as they sat down together on one bench.

            Marduk nodded.  "I had heard they gave you the 'pride' talk, and all the warnings about going to the dark side.  But that's not why I am here.  Milo's only here for show.  All four Arch Mages appearing before you an all that.  See, the thing is, Archer and Amana… they can't teach you any more.  Oh, they could tutor you and stuff, but it would be entirely up to you in which way to push your magic.  They could give you knowledge, and maybe even some insights into certain skills.  But."

            "They can't really _teach_ me anything more," Willow finished for him, understanding.

            Well, only halfway understanding.  "But me on the other hand…" Marduk trailed off.

            Willow looked up at the god, confusion written on her face.

            He smirked, reminiscent of Xander's, and answered her confusion, "Well, I don't like to toot my own horn, but I _am_ a god of magic Willow.  I'm not going to be taking you away from Amana and Archer, let's just say that I'm stepping in to help."

            Willow's brain was on overload.  "You-u-y-y-you w-want t-t-to teach…me?" Willow stuttered.  Marduk nodded, the smirk never leaving his face.

            "OK," she replied meekly again.

_*                       *                       *_

            Buffy was in the Private Training Gym, meditating as Master Fong had taught her.

            It was rather simple, the only difference in it opposed to yoga meditation was that you did more than breath and relax, you also focused your chi to flow in an aggressive and more highly packed manner.  In short, she was super-charging her energy.

            According to Master Fong, for her, Xander's chi being too weak for this exercise, and Willow's chi being too wide-spread for her to do anything like this just yet (something to do with magic apparently), this was supposed to allow her chi to chose its own way of functioning as an energy attack of any kind.  When she asked him about charging all that energy into one's fist or feet, or any part of the body, he explained that was a simplistic technique of using spirit energy, and even after, or before, her chi chose it's own attacks, she would be able to use chi-punches and kicks as much as she wanted.  Which she had been for the past week or so in the nightly training sessions.  But then, so had all the others since they had learned how to focus their energy as such.

            Slowly, breathing steadily and regular, Buffy moved her body only as it was wont to do, flowing with the energy of her soul.  It was surprisingly easier than she had thought it would be, because the body actually _wants_ to move and flow with the energy of the soul, but the mind constantly and too easily overrides that desire.  In this exercise, Buffy was putting her mind on hold and making it take a back seat, letting the body do what it wanted to do…for the moment.

            She was still in control, and not a single part of her forgot it for a moment.  She knew what she had to do, knew what she wanted to do.  All that remained was the matter of doing it.

            Continuing to breathe, Buffy began to agitate her energy, making it move faster, and faster through her body, but her movements remained the same, slow, calm and patient.  Although maybe a tad bit jerkier.

            She forced her energy to go even faster, although she could somehow tell that if she continued, it would be the same as making a nuclear reactor overload, but according to Master Fong that's what she wanted.  She super-charged it and made it move faster, making sweat bead on her skin.

            The energy just couldn't take that, and almost immediately, her body, still moving with her energy, went rigid and it was as if the core of her soul took over for her primary consciousness, and knowledge and words were ingrained in her mind as her right arm lifted of its own accord, palm flat until she was pointing her palm straight out and her voice shouted with an almost ethereal quality, "SLAYER STRIKE!"

            Instantly, her hand barely flashing with the energy of using the attack for the first time, the image of a wooden stake came _flying_ out of her palm.  It wasn't quite real, especially with energy-dust also being projected around it, (similar in theory of smoke being projected by the engines of the space shuttle as it launched into space).  But when it struck the wall, over ten meters away, with a *POP* "CLANG" sound, it was proved to be real enough.

            Surprised at the results, Buffy quickly raced forward and looked at the impact point.  There was a small dent, roughly the same circumference as Buffy's own fist, in the metal.  Buffy thought about this and remembered seeing all of this metal take immense punishment, not the least of which was incredibly powerful ki blasts during the Slayer Team's training.  The most, other than the time Xander had almost knocked her through the wall, she had ever seen this metal show for all the damage it took was scuff and scorch marks.  And here she had just made a dent in it.  A dangerous and confident smirk rested on the Slayer's features.

            "Now if I can just figure out how to do that without meditating for twenty minutes at a time," she said aloud to herself.  She stepped back out into the middle.

            Breathing, and focusing inward as she had been, Buffy felt out her chi.  With barely any conscious effort worth a strain, she supercharged her energy to nearly the same level it had been right before she had first used her new special attack.

            Except now she felt that she could control herself.  She could charge up her energy as much as she wanted, but with her mind in control instead of letting her body flow with the energy, it would only be a matter of concentration to keep from attacking until she wanted to.  Perhaps she could even release a more potent form of the attack if she charged up enough.

            Maintaining the energy at the current level, for now, the Slayer began the real test.

            Breathing deeply, and concentrating on her chi, Buffy tensed every one of her muscles, and then powered up as high as she could.  After she was done, Buffy couldn't keep the giddy smile off of her face.  Her chi levels remained completely unaffected when her ki levels raised or changed in any way.

            Just to be certain, she tried several of the energy techniques she had learned in manipulating her ki.  Creating a ki shield, blasting out energy and creating a mini-hurricane  around her, and forming and throwing a couple energy blasts.  The only thing affected was her physical energy levels, (she was tired), but her chi remained the same.

            Now for the ultimate test, she decided, forming a low-level ki blast.

            She fired it straight out, and when it was only a couple feet from the far wall, she exerted her power over it, and drew back her right fist, calling the ki ball back to her.

            Breathing in meditation again, Buffy held out her right palm, straight at the oncoming attack.  She let go of her controls on the energy, and it burst forth with almost twice the force her first time had.

            "SLAYER STRIKE!"  The stake surrounded by dust flew forward, straight and true.

            Then it went right through the energy ball with nothing else happening.  Until the ki ball struck Buffy head on and exploded.  The Slayer had been staring, dumbstruck, to avoid it.

            There was another *POP* "CLANG" sound that was actually heard over the aftermath of the explosion, and Buffy knew she would find another dent in the wall.

            "Ow!" she cursed as she got up from the explosion.  She wasn't hurt, just a little black in the face from soot and maybe a scratch or two.  "What the hell happened?" she asked herself.

_*                       *                       *_

            Giles was in his apartment room meditating.  He was also in the training gym that Nightblade had helped him to construct out of nothing but his own thoughts.

            In the 4 weeks since he had received the mystic blade, he had made greater progress than he had believed possible.  It was really quite shocking to the Watcher, just exactly what all the mind could do, when utilized without limitations of conscience and society.

            In fact it was even more amazing in just how much the mind _actually_ controlled the body.  Instead of having it go on autopilot all the time, Nightblade had taught him how to control direct functions of the body, from adrenaline production, to immune response, to metabolic healing!  Of course with his immortality, the healing part wasn't as nearly impressive as it normally might have been, but still, it was impressive.

            Also there was more to the mind than just body control, and Giles was exploring a number of those abilities at the moment.  One of which is the speed at which the mind thinks and processes information from the senses.

            Watcher spun around mid-air, almost before the instant he thought of doing so, to avoid the thrust his shadowed opponent struck at him.  Again, almost before he had the thought, he caught the mental version of Nightblade that he had thrown into the air before beginning his evasion in his right hand and began to advance and over power the shadow warrior.

            The actual Nightblade was in its usual place, mantled above the confrontation on a wall of the dojo that Giles had constructed as the representation of his mind.

            Silent, it's only communication in pure thoughts that only Giles could ever here, it watched over its bearer as he trained his mind.  He was doing better than when he had started off, although he still wasn't on…_her_ level.  But Nightblade wasn't going to compare them.  It wouldn't be fair.  They're different people and the Watcher was doing the best he could.  Nightblade knew this for a fact, due mostly to being inside the Watcher's mind.

            Giles thrust forward with the dream version of his obsidian blade.  His opponent blocked with a cross-guard parry, which normally would have sent Giles flying across the room.  At this moment in time it only served to make him take a step back and parry the next lightning swipes the shadow threw at him.  Each moved as fast as humanly possible, but landed with enough force to cripple the average human.

            Of course, this was all in the mind.  Giles' mind to be precise, and just as he could easily make the shadow disappear with a wave of his hand, or force it to follow a preset pattern that he could easily predict, Giles instead was commanding the shadow to use every dirty trick in the book that he had ever tried, or could try now, against him.  It was proving to be a most exhilarating, and dangerously close exercise.

            The two circled around each other more, testing each other's defenses with an occasional thrust or swipe and defending with a parry or a block if it could not be diverted to the side.  After a couple rotations of this, Giles finally stopped, and then moved with no more warning than that.  In less than six moves, he had disarmed his shadow opponent, cut open the lower part of his abdomen so his guts, if shadows had guts, would fall down at his feet, and then impaled him through the heart.  As a finishing move, Giles neatly removed its head, of course without once dropping his guard.

            :Well done: Nightblade complimented him.

            Giles, sweating, just nodded as he watched the shadow disappear.  "Well, it certainly puts a new spin on the old past time of 'shadow fencing'," Giles chuckled to himself and his weapon.

            After a moment's hesitation Nightblade responded, :Yes.  Quite.:

            That only prompted Giles to greater laughter as the sentient blade turned his own phrase that he used against Xander's bad jokes against him.  Giles took as much pleasure in the simple act as he could, for he knew from experience already that it would not last long.

            :What have you learned?:

            He hated it when he was right when he wanted to be wrong.

            Having caught his breath, from both the exercise and laughing, Giles answered tiredly, "That since my opponent was basically 'me'… I can be defeated.  Against someone stronger or more skilled, or only against someone who knows my skill level and can predict or anticipate me.  I need to work on unpredictability as much as increasing my skill level and power."

            Silence, but only for a moment.

            :By being unpredictable, you are predictable, because you can only react in the ways that your body and mind know how to react.  In this you are limited.  If you can overcome this limitation, your skill level will exceed anything that any human alive or living can accomplish.  To do this, you must equally raise your power, but only as your skill increases.  Now, recharge your energies and we will conduct a physical exercise next.:

            "I understand," Giles politely replied, and he did.  He assumed his meditation pose in the center of the dojo, the center of his mind, the copy of Nightblade resting across his knees as the true Nightblade was in the real world.  He began to focus his mental energies on replenishing that which he had just expired through mental control of bodily function.

            :Good: Nightblade observed.  His bearer was becoming more and more adept at learning what he taught him.  He might just be able to accomplish his goal of 40% power by the end of the 6 weeks.  Only time would tell.

_*                       *                       *_

            "Ai-YAH!!  No more!  Go home!  I cannot take any more of your foolish attempts at something so simple!  Go home!  NOW!" Master Fong was screeching as Xander picked up his GEO jacket and scrambled as fast as he could for the nearest MTC.

            He only narrowly missed getting hit by something he didn't even see, only felt, but all the same was glad he had dodged whatever it was.  Turns out it was a floating representation of Master Fong's fist, pointer fingers extended, and continuously trying to rap him on the head.  Xander didn't think as he pushed his palm against the black panel and shouted a destination, using his other arm to swipe at the hitting and floating projectile or whatever the heck it was.

            To his utter astonishment, he seemed to have got it right as he stepped through right into his apartment…and at the same time into a hurricane of magic energy.

            The moment he stepped through the MTC deactivated, only to reactivate thirty seconds later, depositing Buffy, who stopped short the same as Xander had, and for the same reason.

            "What in the…" she muttered, disbelieving.

            Willow was in the middle of the room.  The exact center of the room.  As in floating between the top of the ceiling and the middle of the floor.  And she wasn't the only one flying about.  There were what had to be almost 4-dozen books flying around in geo-synchronize orbits from the glowing redhead.  Yeah, that was the other thing; Willow was surrounded by an aura of power that was decidedly not her ki flame.

            For one thing it was green, and another it wasn't moving it was just…there.

            Books weren't the only things flying about, but the trouble was that neither Warrior nor Slayer could identify _what_ the other things were.  Some were rings of power the same color as Willow's glow with an energy ball traversing the ring, others were miniature suns with what coulda been actual solar systems around them, also orbiting Willow, and then there were the meteorites or comets or something fiery and made of rock just flinging around the room bouncing off whatever it hit.

            "Uh Wills?" Xander called over the noise that all this was making.  Just think of the loudest rock or heavy metal concert you went to, take out the order of the notes and replace the artists' voice with a very high-pitched whine and that would be close to what this sounded like to Buffy and Xander's ears.  Only this was about five times louder.

            The amazing thing though, as they thought about it, was that the noise wasn't hurting their ears, it was just making it difficult to get Willow's attention.

            They tried calling out several more times until Buffy's patience finally expired and she powered up some and shot an energy ball almost right across Willow's nose.  Well, almost because before the blast even got within five feet of the floating redhead, every meteorite comet thing diverted itself from whatever course it was on and instantly attacked the energy blast, protecting Willow.

            After that things started to slow down and the noise, bit by bit, stopped until it was just Willow floating, surrounded by a green aura, with all the books slowly changing their orbits to land neatly on the coffee table.  Once all the other commotion had stopped, Willow began to lower herself to the ground and when she was at the level where she could put her feet under her, the glow finally subsided and it was just Willow standing there, looking embarrassed.

            "Sorry guys," she apologized.  "I had hoped to finish before anybody else got back, but it took me a bit longer than I thought it would."

            "That's okay, what was that?" Buffy asked all at once.

            "That was my homework," Willow answered smoothly.

            Her two best friends gave her incredulous looks as well as the same look Ricky Ricardo had whenever he said "Lucy, you got some splaying' to do!"

            Willow sighed and gestured to the couch area.  "This might take a bit to explain," she began.

            "Start at the beginning I always say," Xander told her.  "It's always the best place to start."

            Willow smiled and giggled a little, but nodded.  "Remember I got the call this morning to go to the Mages Tower?"  They nodded.  "Well, after a bit of misinterpretation on my part, I got to where I needed to go and I met with Amana and Archer, I've told you about them, right?"

            Again they nodded.

            "Well, uh, I… um… I got to meet the other two Arch Mages; you remember how there are only four of them, right? And…"

            "Willow, you're stalling," Buffy interrupted with a glare.

            "I got a new teacher.  He's…Arch Mage 1.  The most powerful magic user at the Compound." Willow told them with a grimace.

            Buffy and Xander shot each other confused looks before turning back to their friend and Xander saying, "Kay, I'm not getting the part where this is stall-worthy."

            Willow nodded and continued, "His name is Marduk.  And…he's a god."

            They stared.  "Huh?" both blurted at once.

            "Specifically he's the Sumerian god of magic.  At least that's one of his titles.  In our universe it is anyway.  He's really a nice guy and…"

            "Your teacher is…a god?" Buffy repeated, stunned.

            Willow nodded.

            "And the homework thing…?" Xander asked.

            "A mental exercise that he taught me today.  Only one of the things he taught me in our first lesson.  Guys, this is hardcore.  I mean…I could learn to do some serious stuff here.  In fact, just because Marduk is my teacher, I've already been given Powermage rank, even though my power isn't yet enough to warrant that."

            Buffy and Xander shared a look and then looked back at Willow, not quite sure what to say.  "Uh…so…how is this going to affect our nightly sessions?" Buffy asked.

            "It won't…not directly anyway," Willow hastened to answer.

            "I mean, I'll still go, although I might be tired if we had a late session or I might skip one night so I can complete like I said homework, but I'll be there.  And with Marduk teaching me I'll be able to use more magic, or at least a larger variety than I've been using so far."

            Shrugging, Buffy just told her friend, "Well, it sounds really great.  And you're learning so I'm sure your happy with this.  Just be sure to let us know if you need help with anything, okay?"

            "Oh, yeah!  Sure!" Willow was smiling and boisterously excited once more.  "And I am learning a lot.  And it's a lot better than just trying to find my own strengths like I've been doing so far.  How are things going with you Xander?"

            "Master Fong just kicked me out because I can't form a proper spirit orb," the warrior grumbled.

            The girls looked at him, Willow with an inkling in to what he was saying, but Buffy was just annoyed and partially appalled.  "You mean just because you couldn't do one thing, he kicked you out?  That's harsh."

            "Yeah well…" Xander blushed, scratching the back of his neck.

            "How many things did you blow up first?" Willow asked with a knowing smirk.

            Xander's blush deepened.  "About half the walls and all of the statues and stone works in the garden," he answered, embarrassed.

            Buffy's eyes lit up with understanding.  "Ohhh…  Well, after all that, I think I might have kicked you out too.  Did you ever manage to get what he wanted done right?" she asked.

            Xander shook his head.

            Buffy's face hardened.  "Then you'll practice all tonight until you _do_ get it right, understand Xander?" she told him strictly, but with compassion and sympathy as well.

            Xander gave her his patented lopsided grin and nodded.

            "Good.  Maybe after you can show me how to do it and then we'll have a round or two of sparring, that sound good?" she asked with a smile.

            "Sounds great," Xander agreed.

            "So where's Giles?  He here yet Wills?" Xander asked after a moment and walking to the Bar to get some afternoon snack.

            "I haven't seen him," the Powermage admitted.  "If he's in his room he hasn't come out cause I know Buffy was in the gym since after Lunch."

            "I haven't seen him either, but…" Buffy stopped talking for a second, before she froze completely in something akin to shock.  Before the others could ask her what was wrong, she was digging for her Global and pulled it out and opened it to the primary menu.

            She scrolled for several seconds, selecting specific options before her face went completely slack in a parody of horror.  "FUCK!!" she cursed loudly.

            She grabbed her friends and before they knew it they were on their way through the MTC to the Main Gym.  When they got there, Giles, Goku, and Broly were there waiting.

            For a change, the Main Gym was almost as filled, as it was the day they had first gotten here, but Buffy was more focusing on apologizing to their Trainer and his friend.

            "It's about bloody time!" Giles snapped, quite obviously impatient.  "We've been waiting here for almost half an hour!"

            "Yeah well, I was busy, and Xander and Willow had lessons they needed to complete," Buffy snapped at her Watcher while walking up to Goku.  "So if we're so far behind already, lets get this over with already!"

            Goku just gave her his customary smirk and turned around.  "It's just a catch-up lesson Buffy, nothing to get your panties in a twist over."

            Buffy gave her own smirk and replied, "I'm not wearing any panties.  What's to catch up on?  We already know all the techniques that you've shown us in manipulating our ki.  As well as several of the multi-spectral wave attacks.  What else is there?"

            Goku turned and smirked at her, and then continued to walk along, Broly walking on ahead.  "Before we get into that, Slayer, I would like to introduce you to some people.  They're another team here at the Compound.  This is their first day of training; they just got here yesterday as a matter of fact.  Broly is their Trainer."

            They quickly walked towards one of the groups that were spread throughout the Main Gym, Broly already standing beside them.  There were four of them, all female, and quite obviously teenagers, no matter how developed they seemed.  What was more interesting was that they were all in similar matching uniforms, but those were _not_ the uniforms the Slayer Team or anyone else they had seen at the Compound wear before.

            The outfits looked like something from the comics or a cartoon almost.  A skintight white bodice that could have just as well been a white version of Buffy and Willow's leotards, but with a colored skirt, each color different for each girl, starting at the hips and ending even with the bottom of the waist.  They also had colored bows held by jeweled pendants on the chest of the bodices, and then extended into scarves kinda like sailors used to wear on their dress uniforms.  Each girl also had a gold tiara with a colored jewel in the center of it on their foreheads, and white gloves that completely covered their forearms, lined at the elbows with the same color the skirts were.  When they turned around, they could see that another large bow of a different color accentuated the skirts at the small of their backs.

            The tallest was just less than six feet, if not at the mark exactly, with chestnut brown hair held back in a billowy ponytail, a rose beret holding it in place.  She looked like a tomboy type, although she was most certainly female from her long legs and body shape.  Her green eyes held a fierce strength, but it was masked under a general happiness that was almost infectious.  Her skirt and scarf color were orange, the bows a royal blue, and she had bright orange pumps on her feet.

            The second was a girl short, boyishly cut, blue (yes, BLUE) hair, a pale, almost oriental complexion, sea blue eyes, and in fact her skirt and bow color were also blue, the latter baby blue.  She had knee-high solid blue boots on her feet and gave off a conflicting aura, like she was shy and quiet and at the same time had an aura of confidence that made you want to listen to every word she had to say.

            The next girl had coal black hair to her shoulders, bright green eyes, and a very tan complexion, making her look Hawaiian.  Her scarf and skirt were bright royal red, the bows a dark purple, and she had bright red pumps on her feet, similar to the ones the tall girl wore.  She was slightly intimidating because she gave off that aura of someone that always tried too hard to make you her friend.  Especially with the way she seemed to be hanging on every one of Broly's words.

            The last girl was an image of commanding presence if ever there was one.  Waist-length blonde hair, blue eyes, and she looked American, especially with the way that she looked at the newcomers like she knew everything there was to know already.  Her outfit was slightly different from the others because she wasn't wearing a bodice, but a two-piece shirt and skirt.  The shirt was little more than a white T-shirt, a red scarf tied around the top of it, but she also had a navy/black velvet vest on over the shirt and scarf, a blue flap hanging from the back of her neck.  The skirt was blue and had a red bow on the back of it, but she also had bright red knee boots like the girl in blue had.  Her tiara had a yellow jewel though.

            "Slayer Team, meet the Senshi Team," Goku introduced.

            "Hi!" Buffy greeted immediately.

            The other blonde, the one in what may as well have been a Japanese schoolgirl uniform, glared at her and folded her arms crossly.  "Who're you?" she snapped in English.

            Buffy looked hurt for a second, but let it go as she answered, "Well, my name is Buffy Summers, but my codename is Slayer.  These are my friends, Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris, and Giles.  His codename is Watcher."

            "I'm sorry about that," Broly apologized.  In a language not heard on Earth.  The Senshi team glared hatefully at him.

            "It's ok," Buffy replied in English, "She didn't offend."

            "Oh Mina, are you being bossy again?  I told you that people don't like you when you're that way," a perky high-pitched voice suddenly squeaked out from the side.

            The source was revealed to be another blonde, also with pale skin and blue eyes, but her hair was actually longer than the first one, drawn into two pigtails with two ball-like bundles of hair on top of her head.  She looked to be about the same age as the other girls, but she was dressed in a pink long-sleeved shirt and green skirt, nothing uniform about it.

            "And Mr. Broly, you know it's quite rude to speak those other languages of yours when we don't know what you're saying," she spoke in Japanese to Broly.  The mighty and very large demi-Saiyan blushed deeply and scratched the back of his head and muttered an apology.

            "Hi!" the new girl greeted perkily, holding out her hand to Buffy, who took it gently and shook hands with her.  "I'm Serena Tsukino, but all my friends call me Bunny!"

            "Well, actually, my full name is Elizabeth, but I hate that name, so everybody calls me Buffy," the Slayer replied back.

            "Wow!  That's so neat!  It's practically the same name!  So what do you do here?" Bunny gushed.

            "Serena!" the other blonde called Mina snapped.

            "No, it's all right," Buffy waved her off and answered Bunny's question.  "Actually I'm sort of a student here.  Goku here is my…uh, our Trainer.  These are my friends, Xander, Willow, and Giles."

            "Hi everybody!"

            "Uh…hi?" Willow answered uncertainly.

            "Hello Bunny," Xander replied, wearing his lopsided grin.

            "Hello," Giles nodded.

            "Wow, you're cute," she sidled up to Xander, whose grin deepened immediately.

            "Serena!" Mina shouted.

            Looking like a wounded puppy, Serena quickly walked back to the group of girls, incidentally so she was between the tall one in the orange outfit and the one with blue hair in the blue outfit.

            "I am Sailor V, leader of the Sailor Soldiers," Mina stiffly introduced her team to the Slayer Team.

            Buffy shared a look with each of the people behind her, but didn't say anything to Mina's statement.

            "This is my second in command and team tactician, Sailor Mercury, civilian name Amy Mizuno.  Then there's Sailor Venus, Lita Kino, and Sailor Mars, Alia Site." Mina finished the introductions.

            "It's very nice to meet all of you," Buffy reinforced, smiling.

            "And you've already been introduced to Serena Tsukino," Mina added with a touch of annoyance to her tone.  Bunny just stuck her tongue out and held down her eyelid at Sailor V.

            Buffy just smiled a bit more warmly in Bunny's direction, then turned her attention to Goku.  "So…now that we've met…now what?  Are we going to train with each other today?"

            Goku grimaced.  "Not exactly.  See, the Senshi Team just got here yesterday.  This is their first day of Training.  Broly asked me to swing by with you guys sort of like the Demo I did for you that first day…only you guys do it instead, since you're actually being trained."

            Buffy nodded, understanding the issue and certainly not mad about it.  In fact she would have appreciated the same if she was in the Senshi's position.  "Cool.  So, Big Ape, what would you like us to demo for your new star pupils?"

            "I'd actually like to see what's so special about you that _students_ have to teach _us_ something!" Sailor Mars, Alia grunted.

            Buffy arched an eyebrow at the tone, but otherwise didn't really respond.

            "That's a start," Broly grinned.

            Slayer Team smirked.

            "So, what's they're specialties?" Willow asked.

            "They all have magical powers and superhuman abilities as far as agility and speed go, except for Bunny of course.  Mars controls the element of Fire, Mercury controls water and ice, while Venus controls light and thunder.  Sailor V utilizes the elements of wind and earth, while having greater physical abilities than all of the others." Broly listed.

            Willow smirked and nodded.  "I'll hold back Buffy, you and Xander can go ahead."

            Buffy's expression matched Willows and nodded her agreement.

            The Slayer turned and regarded each of the "Sailor Soldiers" with a critical eye, sensing which of them was the strongest.  She smiled at Bunny and asked in a friendly tone, "So how about it Bunny?  Want to spar a little?  Just to know what you'll be going up against in the Tournament?"

            Everyone looked shocked at the short blonde, and not Bunny or Mina.  Bunny herself started laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world.  Mina just looked ticked.

            "I'm not here for…training did you call it?" Bunny laughed.

            Buffy's face scrunched in confusion, especially when she saw Goku and Broly and Ryu looking at her like they were.

            "Uh…just the Sailor Soldiers are getting trained here Buffy," Goku explained.  "Serena is sort of like a Princess that the Senshi Team is meant to protect.  She's here because they wouldn't come otherwise.  Not even for just three days."

            "Oh.  Sorry," Buffy apologized to the Sailor Soldiers in general.

            "Yeah, and how come you picked Bunny-butt if you thought that she was one of us?  She doesn't even have any powers!" Alia asked Buffy.

            The Slayer shrugged.  "I just sensed who had the greatest power.  Bunny is a lot more powerful than you might think."

            Every single one of the Sailor Soldiers snorted and rolled their eyes while Alia commented, "Yeah right!"

            Bunny blushed crimson and looked down, embarrassed.

            Buffy gave the Senshi Team a harsh smirk.  "Yeah.  Right," she said in different tone entirely.  "Sometimes it is the non-powered people who do the most good and have the greatest potential for power.  Take Xander here for instance.  Four and a half weeks ago, he was practically nothing.  I wouldn't have even had to break a sweat to break him in half, literally."

            Buffy crossed her arms and glared harder.  "Now he's my sparring partner, and less than a week ago he knocked me with a blow that sent me half the distance of this room.  Yeah, really big room.  We call it the Main Gym.  And what's more is that even before we came to this place or even knew about this place, Xander's saved my life at least twice over.  Word to the stupid bimbos in schoolgirl outfits, power isn't everything.  If I've learned one thing here, that's it."

            "So what can you do that a non-powered human can beat you up?" Mina snarled.  It was not a good look on her face, which just went to say how angry she was at Buffy's words.

            The Slayer just smirked at her and walked a distance away.

            Taking a breath, she got into a power-up stance, and then did just that, powering to her max in less than ten seconds.  When she had first started learned how to tap her ki, it took very little time to reach her maximum power because she really didn't have that much power.  Now, two weeks after…well lets just say that ten seconds is very, very fast.

            The ki flame flashed around her in a burst of light and energy.  Once she was at her max, she started to supercharge her ki and with a mighty explosion from her ki flame, she shot into the air, doing aerial stunts that turned heads.  Just as she was coming in to land, she charged a small ki ball between her hands and let it loose only a few feet in front of the Senshi Team, making sure that Bunny was being protected by the bodies of both her team and the teenage girls.

            The explosion was very small and all it really did was make a really big noise and a flash of smoke that smeared soot over the faces of those that did not create a ki shield in time.  AKA; the Senshi Team.

            Buffy landed calmly in front of her team, her arms still crossed and asked, "Would you like any further demonstrations…girls?"

            "Way ta make friends Buff," Xander mumbled right behind her.

            "Uh, no, I think they got the point," Broly quickly intervened.  "Thank you for the help Buffy!"

            "No, that's all right Broly," Mina interrupted him and stepped forward until she was practically standing on Buffy's toes.  "Flying around using wind and light isn't as impressive as you might think to us, _girl_.  And I really don't appreciate having a smoke bomb being flung in my face.  Now why don't you show us what you can really do?"

            Buffy winced slightly as she pulled her feet out from under Sailor V's boots, and then calmly turned around and started walking away.  As she turned, she gave a look and nodded to Xander, who began to walk parallel to her in the same direction until they were both over twenty paces away.

            "All out X," Buffy called across the distance.  She only received a nod in reply.

            In a flash of light and sound, their clear ki flames appeared around both fighters and mostly just danced around in the wind created by the existence of their energy.  Once their power levels were at their max, they began to slowly circle each other, never taking their eyes off their opponent.

            Not counting training sessions, this would be the first serious sparring battle between these two friends since their first week here at the Compound.  And they would not be starting off slow this time around.

            With a yell, Warrior X crouched down and then launched himself with incredible power towards the Slayer.  Half a microsecond, the time it would take for the eyelid to close while blinking, before he would have tackled her, Slayer side-stepped and rotated her body in a counter-clockwise motion while extending her left leg, and put even more force behind it by angling it upward and putting her upper body into it as well.

            Warrior X saw the attack coming and it was a miracle and a half that he managed to react fast enough to bring his arms and legs up to block it.  The force of her kick, combined with his momentum sent the Warrior flying high in an arch that almost touched the ceiling of the mammoth room.

            Mid-air, he managed to reorient himself and caught himself as he began his downward arch.  Flying, he considered several long-range attacks before the Slayer suddenly took long-range out of the equation.

            Yelling with the exertion, Slayer came in at easily twice the speed Warrior X had flown with earlier, nearly eliminating the possibility of him preparing a countermove.  He dodged downward as she came upon him, and then pushed both his feet into her gut and sent her flying out of control beyond him.

            Surprised, but not letting it get to her, Slayer concentrated on controlling her flight and moving back to continue the fight, until her sixth sense warned her that Warrior X was already one step ahead of her.

            Twisting around mid-air, Slayer caught and deflected Warrior X's opening hits and started to throw some of her own, despite being upside down while he was right-side up.  Moving so fast that their limbs blurred, even to their own hyper-enhanced vision, they hovered there in the air, trading blows for several minutes before Slayer got in a lucky shot and sent Warrior X tumbling through the air to the ground, almost right in front of the spectators of their group.

            Slayer flew down to continue, but found she didn't have to go all the way as Warrior X met her halfway.  Even as other fighters trained and fought around them, the two physically most powerful members of Slayer Team battled as if they were the only ones in the room.

            Goku knew better though as he watched the battle.

            Buffy was holding back, but at the same time, so was Warrior X, which was not a trait that Goku had seen in him before.  Then, as he watched both fighters steer each other away from the Sailor Soldiers, as well as several other fighters when they got too close to other training matches, he realized what was happening.  And he swelled with pride.

            Slowly, as the blows between them became even more furious, both fighters landed on the ground to continue the battle.  X, the moment they were settled on the floor, tried a sweep kick, which Slayer somersaulted backwards over, and staying up in the air so she could send a high kick into his face when X stood back up before landing back on the ground herself.

            Knocked back a couple paces by that blow, Xander instinctively growled, but then immediately slammed down on those instincts with an iron will that surprised even him.  He was just grateful not to lose control again.

            Taking only a moment to recover from her kick, Warrior X quickly raced back in and started to fight the Slayer once again, but by this point he could tell she was holding back more than was necessary.

            However, when she blocked or avoided more than half of his blows, and started to retaliate and every single one of hers hit while he was lucky to get maybe one out of every three shots he sent her way through her defenses, he began to realize that maybe, just maybe, she _wasn't_ holding back more than was _necessary_.

            Suddenly she got him with a surprise combo of a roundhouse punch to the face, knocking his head around, a knee to the left side of his ribs, kick to his right knee, making it automatically bend so he lost his balance, and to finish it up a big roundhouse kick to knock his head back around to the other way.

            For a moment, as he fell to his knees, he was seeing stars on a black and red background, and then the lightheadedness passed and the pain caught up with him.

            Instincts immediately warned him that the Slayer wasn't done and moving faster than anyone thought he could move, surprising the Slayer as she was about to knock him out with a blow to his neck, he lashed out with his own punch to her face, which briefly stunned her enough for his rising knee-kick to knock all of the air out of her lungs.

            Not giving her a chance to retaliate or recuperate, Xander jumped into the air and began to rotate his body in a horizontal clockwise motion, and landed a devastating kick to the middle of Buffy's back.  She went down, knocked to the ground, and hurting like she'd just gotten rolled over by a garbage truck.

            Xander, in a feat that no human without ki training could pull off, managed to catch and right himself to land on his feet, instead of falling to the floor with Buffy.

            His wounds and pains caught up with him again and made him back off enough so they both could recuperate, although he really hoped the snot-nosed bitches in what he could have sworn were outfits that were illegal in all Eastern countries, and certain States of the US, had learned the lesson Goku had impressed into them that first day.

            To stay alive here, you needed to be strong, you needed to be fast, you need to be tough, and just as important as all the others, despite Buffy's little speech earlier, you need to have _power_.  If they were going to survive at all in the Tournament, they really needed to learn that lesson.

            Finally, after staying on the ground for over 30 seconds, Buffy started to get to her feet.  Although it was slow going, and not the rushed, fighting way that he knew she could get up if she was intent on continuing this sparring match, having seen her do so in training before now.  Xander could only hope that that meant he could have a little bit more of a breather.  Those last two blows to the head gave him a killer headache.

            Buffy looked up at him and smiled, then quickly got the rest of the way to her feet and nodded at him.  He sighed with relief as she remarked, "Yeah, we're done Xan.  Pretty good.  You got me good with that last little maneuver of yours.  I am impressed."

            They walked the rest of the way back to the group, where most of the Sailor Soldiers, and Bunny, were staring at them, stunned.  There were even some jaws on the floor.  Well… except one.

            "Not bad," Mina, suitably impressed but not wanting to lose face, intoned as they came up.  "Your good, I'm willing to admit that.  And if what you say about your friend here, Warrior X, is true, then I can definitely see the advantages of the Training offered here."  Then the familiar scowl, which looked so out of place on her beautiful face, returned.  "But I doubt you could handle a first class daemon."

            Buffy rolled her eyes, and then rubbed a sore spot that Xander had hit early in the fight as she rolled the kinks out of her shoulder.  "You wanna test that theory?  Even though the big boys said not to, I'm thinking you need a hands on lesson.  What do ya say V-girl, wanna go a round or two?  That is, if you could even survive to the end of round one."

            Xander, still holding his head as the pounding slowly, _very_ slowly began to subside, shook his head and rolled his eyes.  "Buff, you just put me through the ringer.  I'm not up for another sparring match of any level."

            "What's the matter?" the one called Alia, Sailor Mars teased him.  "Afraid to see how well you could do against a couple of teenage girls, or are you just so weak that it's easier to take the chicken's way out?"

            Xander's eyes squinted dangerously, his instincts rising to the surface once more, but he made sure to keep them in check, although it was a struggle.

            Willow, however, watching from the sidelines, knew the outcome, no matter Xander's status, as neither he nor Buffy had powered back down.  Smiling, she said to her friend in the same tone, although a completely different manner that Mars had spoken in, "Gee, that sounds like a challenge to your manhood Xander.  I don't know about you, but I think it is like a sacred duty that you now accept the challenge and fight her."

            Xander gave his long time best friend a quirky grin; his headache lightening up even more with the flush of adrenaline his instincts had given him when Mars insulted him like that.  Giving the dark haired girl a darker grin, he just nodded and stepped forward.

            Immediately, the red and purple clad Soldier charged with a flying kick, which Xander quickly and neatly avoided.  She tried to trip him up with a sweep kick, but to him she was moving so slowly he treated her leg like a jump rope.

            Backing off to gauge his reactions, Mars smirked and then charged in again, a little faster, with a punch to his face.

            Instantly, his hand moving faster than she could see, he caught her fist and without thought, really he was not thinking, he retaliated with a palm strike to her lower abdomen, a non-lethal blow.

            Instantly, the Sailor Soldier of Mars was blasted back, out of his grip like she had been shot out of a cannon on a battleship.  All the other fighters in the gym immediately got out of the flying projectile's way, so Mars didn't stop until she crashed, still vertical and in practically the same position she was in when Xander hit her, against the far wall.

            She was instantly dead, her neck and several vertebrae in her spine breaking if not shattering, her lungs and all the organs in her lower abdomen all caving in and those not protected (and crushed) by bone were instantly liquefied.  Blood came from several pores, as well as her eyes, ears, mouth and nose as the warrior of fire crumbled to the ground.

            Thankfully, the distance was so great that the human Sailor Soldiers, and Bunny, were unable to see all of this.  They only saw Xander hit her, and then Mars flying back and hitting the wall before crumbling to the ground.

            Xander stared, stunned at what he had done, and also with the enhancements to _see_ what he had done.  Then he looked sheepish as he scratched the back of his head and shrugged at all those staring at him.  "Whoops."

            Sailor V, her jaw now joining those on the ground, just looked back and forth from the place on the ground where Mars was, and Xander, who was looking more embarrassed than guilty.  She tried to ask what the hell had just happened, besides the obvious, but only little grunting sounds escaped her throat.

            Buffy, also catching on to what had happened, and knowing she wasn't the only one after seeing Willow's smirk, decided to explain to the obviously confused Senshi Team.  "What?  You do remember me telling you that Xander was an ordinary guy before coming here right?  I guess I forgot to mention that I was the Slayer before I came here.  I was at least five times stronger, faster, and everything else than a regular human.  Now, recall what I also said about Xander now being my primary sparring partner.  It may look like we're throwing hits on your level girls, but that's because we're nearly equal in our strength now.  When fighting each other, we put on a good show, but when fighting normal kids, like you, well…" She just gestured.

            They bristled slightly at being called "normal kids", but then took another look at Mars, and even the ever-prideful Sailor V looked more subdued.  Buffy smiled, they had learned their lesson.  As the Slayer Team themselves had learned, just in a less painful way.

            "She's going to be all right, right?" she asked discreetly to the Trainers when the Senshi Team was distracted once more.

            "Oh, yeah," Broly said, "She's already reviving."  He pointed and indeed the now-familiar golden glow of the Powers could be seen, even by the Sailor Soldiers, from this distance.  Nodding, the Slayer Team and Goku then turned around and walked away.  "Now what?" Buffy asked their Trainer.

            Goku sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose and forehead.

_*                       *                       *_

            The next day, in the afternoon after Xander and Willow's lessons, and Buffy had spent the morning in the Exercise Room and then spent an hour in the lower half of Second Training and Giles meditating, Goku met the Slayer Team in the Private Training Gym.

            "So what's on the agenda for today Saiyaman?" Buffy teasingly asked the Trainer.

            Goku scowled, she knew how much he hated his codename, but the scowl didn't mar his face for long as he remembered she was only teasing and meant it only in good fun.  "Today, I find out how much you've learned," he replied with a Saiyan smirk.  "Yesterday concluded all that I had to teach you in technique.  Now all I have left to do is measure your strength, and see what needs to be done to increase it.  All that will remain after that is experience, but you'll have time to take care of that when you return home."

            Buffy gave him a Slayer smirk right back.

            "Cool.  So that means that today we…" she left the sentence hanging.

            "Spar," Goku nodded, finishing the sentence with the word she had half-expected.

            "Yes!" Xander pumped his fist.

            Goku smirked and got into the ready stance he had shown them four weeks previous.  "So show me how much you've learned," he kept the same smirk on his face, unfurling his tail.

            In response each of the Slayer Team got into the same stance, out of habit automatically powering to their max as fast as they could.

Goku beckoned them over with a very 'Bruce Lee' like gesture.  The four warriors, roared out as they shot forward and Goku's smirk deepened.  He simply backed up.  Buffy realized the move first, and backed off.  Giles, Willow, and Xander realized it too, but much too late.  They slowed to keep from smashing into each other, and were much too busy avoiding each other to notice Goku moving back in.  With three well-placed punches, all three of them were sent flying to their own corners of the gym.

Buffy came in and threw her right fist at Goku, who blocked it, and followed up with his own. Buffy blocked his, and the two started trading blows, until Goku suddenly backed up and fired an energy ball at her.  She avoided it only barely.  The reason of Goku's backing up became quickly apparent.  The other three members of the Slayer Team returned to the fold. They had to make a course correction to catch up to Goku, but they didn't seem to be making the same mistake as earlier.  Goku blocked one punch, then a second and third.

Xander had had enough, and growled, his hyena half screaming out for retribution. He charged a ki-ball and fired it.  Goku avoided a deft punch by Willow, and bashed the relatively uncoordinated ki-ball aside, directly into Giles' face, who was flung aside by the explosion.

Buffy in the mean time had jumped over all of them, twisted in the air, and came down behind Goku with the intention of kicking him in his back.  Goku had far too much experience to fall for it, and with a remarkable show of speed, flew in the air, directly over Willow.  Buffy's kick went straight for Willow's stomach.  With all her effort she reversed her energy on just barely kept herself from kicking Willow in her stomach.  Too bad for Buffy, Xander and Willow did not have the same self-control.  Xander's punch connected with Buffy's jaw at the same time that Buffy got hit square in the stomach by Willow's fireball. Buffy was flung back diagonally at the impacts until she crashed into the wall, unable to catch herself, and groaned out in pain.

"Ohmigod!  Buffy, I didn't mean . . ." Willow started, but that's as far as she got, when Goku kicked her in her back hard, and a moment later she joined Buffy groaning against the wall.

"You're all going to have to better than that," Goku commented neutrally.

"KAMEHAMEHA!" Xander yelled out, sending the massive ki-wave against Goku.  The 1/8th Saiyan his raised ki braced himself, one-foot back, and catching the wave on outstretched hands.

"Better, but still not good enough," Goku stated, a little strain in his voice.  He raised a ki shield, pushing the weaker energy wave back a bit, and fired two small balls of energy directly into the Kamehameha. The explosion that followed, rocked the gym on its foundations, but neither warrior, was really effected by it.

With a yell Xander attacked, completely giving in to the primal urges within him. He traded several blows with Goku, but the Saiyan warrior was not to be outdone.  He grabbed one of Xander's punches, and twisted it, pulling Xander through the air, and past him.  A kick to Xander's stomach sent him further on his upside-down way.  Goku twisted around, his ki-flame bursting into existence, as Giles hacked down with his magical blade with a roar.  The blade landed in between Goku's left thumb and index finger, and there it stopped, never hitting skin.  Goku's ki-enveloped fingers holding the flat side of the broadsword.

Goku smirked at the astonished Giles, and said, "Nice try."  Goku kicked out, sending Giles flying back again, but held on to the sword, so the Watcher was weaponless.  "Do try not to lose it so easily next time," Goku said with a deepened smirk.  He tossed the sword to his other hand, and threw it.

The sword drilled through the air, flying in a nice arc, twisting around its axis, across the distance between the Saiyan and the Watcher.  Giles was still groaning from the impacts, when he noticed Nightblade flying right at him. Eyes wide instantly, he held up his hand, and his blade came to a standstill, hovering in the air mere millimeters in front of his chest. Giles shirked his fear in that instant and knew from that moment on that Goku could never pull that kind of trick again.

Buffy was standing again, Willow next to her, and over looked the situation, annoyed by Goku's casual smirk. "Guys," she said with authority. "This ain't working, we have to get more coordinated, work together more."

            "I'm up for suggestions!" Xander literally growled at her.

            Buffy shot him a glare that had the same calming effect that an Alpha snapping at a disobedient cub had.  She glared at Goku who was floating casually in the air, his arms crossed and the same smirk on his face, his tail hanging free behind him and a clear white-ish ki flame flowing smoothly around him.

            "Follow my lead!" she ordered and took to the air.  The others immediately ignited their own ki flames and rose into the air as well, but waited to see what the Slayer would do before trying to attack anymore.

            Buffy glared down angrily at the Saiyan, trying to go over all of their options.  She didn't even know for sure if she could take him let alone all of them at once.  The few times they had successfully all worked together it was usually in team-up, when it was three on one or two on two.

            Buffy blinked as the shock traveled through her.  That's it!

            "Will!  X, Watcher, cover!" she shouted and then dove straight for Goku.  Willow was right on her tail, diving just to the left and a little above the blonde.

            For the moment, he was just hovering there, seeing what they would do.  Buffy was sort of counting on this as Xander and Giles flashed away to their positions while Willow flew in behind her.  Less than ten feet from their target, Buffy's left hand, at her waist the entire time, suddenly held up three fingers so only Willow could see, then drew them back and held up two fingers.

            Willow immediately understood and started charging two magic bolts, basically magick versions of ki blasts.  As Buffy's hand counted one, and then formed into a fist, Willow fired the bolts at two opposite spots above and on either side of Goku's still-frame.

            By this point Buffy had reached the Saiyan, and as expected, he flashed away, but at the exact same instant, Giles reappeared and deflected one of Willow's bolts with Nightblade while Xander appeared on the other side and fired another, more controlled ki ball.

            Half an instant later, the ki ball exploded, connecting with the bolt Giles had deflected and stopping Goku just above the explosion where all four converged on him, taking extra care to not hit each other.

            Goku blocked a punch from Buffy, kicked away another punch from Xander while using his other ki-enamored fist to block Nightblade's slashes and Willow's close range bolts that mostly just stung.

            Throughout it all though, Goku's expression never once changed.

            "You know," Buffy said conversationally as she ducked under an attempted counter from Goku, and at the same time lashed out with her feet into kicks, "the least you could do besides smirk at us like that is critique us while you beat the living snot out of us!  It's only fair, given that you're our Trainer."

            Goku's smirk faltered into a frown for a moment, but his movements kept pace with theirs.  "You know," he replied in the same manner, "if you can talk and fight at the same time… you're not giving me your all.  Given how much stronger I am, you don't have the right to whine about that.  Now why don't you all shut up and start showing me exactly what all you've learned."

            Buffy squinted in anger, and subconsciously boosted her power just a little higher.  Every other one of her punches was now getting through, her movements much faster than before, and even Goku had to admit that she had gotten stronger.

            Although, not strong enough.

            With a roar of his own, Goku powered up even more, using the excess energy build-up to create a shockwave that knocked the Slayer Team back down to the floor and several meters away from him.

            Now, a solid ki flame, the color of crisp and very bright snow on a cold winter morning surrounded his strengthened frame.  It might have been an illusion, or maybe it was just the effect of his life force given visual form, but it looked like all of Goku's muscles had somehow become more well-defined, if not bigger in some way.  Add to that the blood lusty look in his eyes, coupled with that unchanging smirk of confidence on his face, the Saiyan now truly appeared to be of the bloodthirsty race.

            Buffy gulped, nervous not at the sight her Trainer presented, but with the level that his power was at now.  Before she only had the beginning levels of his Super Saiyan transformation to compare herself against, and for a while there she had thought she had been getting pretty close.

            But…she hadn't considered what his power could become like in this form.  It hadn't ever occurred to her that in his normal form, his power could go to almost anything below what his power was like as a Super Saiyan, and despite not *being* a Super Saiyan, that was still a **lot** of power.

            Taking a breath to calm herself and swallow her fear, Buffy got to her feet and considered her options.  Finish this lesson half-heartedly, expecting to get beat with the next punch and knowing that she only survived because Goku wanted her to.  Or…fight like she was going to win.  No matter what.

            It was like molten adrenaline injected right into every single one of her veins and arteries all at once.  She couldn't explain it, not yet at any rate, but something deep inside her, deeper than the Slayer spirit that always made her come out on top of every demon she fought, deeper even than her own morals and emotions, something ignited her with the passion to fight and to win.

            A shockwave easily equal to the one Goku had used to knock them aside blasted out of the Slayer as her ki flame ignited around her, making it look like her aura was on fire.

            She took a step forward and then grinned savagely at Goku.  Calmly she slipped her GEO jacket, which was set to at least 100 Gs off her shoulders and cast it aside where it landed with a heavy thud against the floor.

            Wearing only the black leotard and black gi pants and boots, Buffy lifted herself off the floor until she was vertically even with Goku.  Her senses reached out without even trying, determining Goku's power level and what she would need to do to beat him.

            Giles was in considerably worse shape.  Slowly getting to his feet and using Nightblade as a support to help him stand, Giles asked the Blade in their mind-to-mind communication, _'Well, I'm rather out of ideas at the moment.  Any suggestions on how I can help my Slayer?'_

            Nightblade was silent for the moments that Buffy was powering up even further, Goku staring amused at her.

            _:The chi techniques.  They are you're only chance of any surprise or success at all.  In conjunction with your use of me, you might be able to formulate an attack that the Trainer may not anticipate.  But you must be prepared to take advantage of such a distraction.  You cannot continue trying to knock him away with side-blows.  You must try to cut him.  He would not be here, as he is if he could not protect himself against you with me in your hand.:_

            _'I will not kill,'_ Giles thought back adamantly.

            _:He's immortal, you're immortal, and I refuse to teach you the one attack that _could_ alter that, not that it can in his case.  And what are scratches compared to being atomized by energy?:_

            Giles growled to himself as he raised his power once more, hoping that his energy would hold out for long enough.  _'All right, you've made your point.  Can you help me to focus?'_

            _:Of course:_

            While Giles was 'focusing', Buffy had finished powering up, her power, to their senses, almost equal to what Goku's was at the moment.  Given that, even as he could sense the same thing they could, Goku's outward expression remained unchanged, they all knew the Saiyan was still holding back.

            In the blink of an eye, Buffy vanished from her point and another eye blink after, so did Goku.  Concussion waves could be felt from all over the gym as the Slayer and Saiyan traded blows, but none of them could easily keep up with their speed.

            Willow was flushed and breathing heavily.  Painfully she got to her knees and saw Xander do the same just across from her.  Groaning with the effort, the Powermage got to her feet and started over to him.

            Her magically heightened senses warned her a millisecond before it happened and that proved to be just enough time for her equally enhanced instincts to take over and raise her power and pour it into her speed as she shot forward with everything she had to avoid being right between two blows from the Saiyan and Slayer.

            Flashing right next to Xander, who was getting to his feet, Willow helped him and kept her senses open, not wanting another close call.

            "We've gotta get back in the fight," Xander said with such savagery in his voice Willow flinched away from him for a moment.  "Buffy's all alone against him."

            "Xander," Willow hissed insistently, "Control yourself.  Don't fall into your instincts so easily.  Use them, don't let them use you, like _last_ _time_," she reminded him.

            Now he flinched, and then he breathed meditatively before he nodded to her, much calmer.  He looked at her, that same connection they'd had ever since kindergarten, where they could almost read each other's mind just by the expression the other wore.  "Ready?" he asked, his voice angry, but not as savage as it had been a moment before, more controlled.

            Willow nodded and replied "Double-team?"

Xander nodded back.

A second before they took back to the fight, they turned to each other and said at the exact same time, "Don't hit Buffy."  Realizing what had happened, they smiled at each other, nodded again, and then flashed away at nearly the same speed Buffy and Goku were moving.

            An instant after they went, Giles too started to move with the same speed.

Buffy was in her element, and completely focused upon the Saiyan in front of her, who just refused to stop smirking.  He deflected blow after blow, and the ones that did go through his defenses didn't do as much damage, at least not as much as the ones that got through her defenses.

She screamed in rage, her ki going up just another notch, and she lost herself in her anger.

Which was not a good idea.  One wild swing was all Goku needed, and exactly what she gave him. He grabbed her arm, twisted it under his own and pinned it to his body. He went sideways and rammed a vicious elbow in Buffy's face, right under her nose.  Buffy knew the follow up combination in her compromised state would be the final thing in this match . . . but it never came.

Instead she flew backward from the impact and she forced herself to slow down son instead of crashing into the floor, she landed.

She opened her eyes, the blood flowing from her nose already slowing, and saw Xander and Willow taking on Goku together, but Giles seemed to be hanging back a bit, waiting for an opening, not wanting to hurt his own team mates.

            Buffy knew she couldn't let herself lose control like that again, and while Xander lost his control against her earlier and had nearly overpowered her, against a more experienced fighter, losing control would mean a certain loss; too many uncoordinated attacks, they could use every single opening - and there would be a lot - against her.  Filing away this important lesson, she yelled as she let loose her energy in rage, controlled rage, and returned to the fight.

            Goku in the mean time was still smirking, enjoying the match. They had gotten tough, he actually had to put forth an effort, but that it would be his victory was undoubted.  The Powermage and Warrior X were attacking him with everything they had, but they were getting to the end of their ropes.

Having being going on the same routine for some while, blocking, kicking, punching, he decided to switch gears suddenly.  As he blocked one of Xander's punches, he suddenly moved forward, and went on his side, kicking his right foot out.  Willow was completely unprepared and got the kick square in her stomach.  With a loud 'oof' she was flung backward and didn't stop until crashing into a wall and dropping to the floor, either unconscious or dead.

Never losing sight of any of his opponents, Goku let go of Xander and twisted around, avoiding the stabbing motion of Giles' obsidian weapon.

Lashing out suddenly with a white-hot-glowing fist, right after, Giles managed to catch Goku hard enough in his torso he blew backward and was doubled over from the force of the energy punch.  The Trainer was surprised briefly and it took him some moments to orient himself.  Normally he only got hit like that by the other warriors on _his_ level of power.

Goku quickly made a backward somersault, flipping over Slayer.

She flipped around, Giles and Xander quickly joined her at her sides. "Let's get'em," she hissed, and her companions nodded.

They rushed forward, Xander and Giles attacking low, so Goku went up, and so did Buffy.  He blocked her first blow, the second hit.  The hit jarred him a little, and he blasted off to the right.  All three of his opponents charged energy attacks right at that moment, aiming for him.

Four energy balls, two from Buffy, two from Xander came at him, while Giles was still busy with a powerful-looking yellow energy beam.  Goku veered off to the right, narrowly avoiding the wall, the energy attacks unable to make the same maneuver exploded against it.

Giles put both his hands out, screaming with the pressure of firing the energy beam, going after Goku with it.  Slayer and Warrior X started firing more ki balls after Goku as their first ones were destroyed.

Goku fired one of his own ki balls, which blew up one of those that came for him. He swatted aside a second, and then raised his chi in a shield around him, his arms crossed in front of his face.

The ki balls impacted and exploded.  Goku felt the impacts, and was impressed that they were able to damage him, even if it was inconsequential injuries.  Not even flesh wounds.

Immediately after Giles energy beam hit, Goku put his hands out, pushing back against the ki beam, pouring his own ki against it.  He moved back under the beam's onslaught, but it could not hit him yet.

Giles watched with satisfaction as he pinned the demi-Saiyan under his beam.  Xander and Buffy shot alongside it, intent on taking advantage of Goku's compromised defenses.  Giles was determined keep the pressure on so Buffy and Xander could finish it, so he poured more of his energy into the ki beam.  Too late he realized his mistake.

Suddenly Goku let himself rotate backward, the beam flying over him, and impacting and exploding against the wall. The dust and light the explosion threw up, temporarily blinding Buffy and Xander, while Goku continued his back flip down to the floor. He landed on his hands, and pushed off immediately. Giles having depleted most of his energy with that beam, and no way to bring up whatever defenses he had left, decided it was time for that distraction.

            He drew Nightblade back up and channeled all of his energy, and his chi that Nightblade had been helping him to focus, into the blade itself, and raised it for and overhead chop.  Goku saw this, but he just smirked again and raised a ki shield around his body, as he had before.

            _:Lets teach him some respect:_ Nightblade whispered into Giles' mind.

            Faster than Goku could react to, Giles brought the white-hot glowing blade down in a powerful chop, powerful enough that everyone watching swore he could have literally cut the air.

            Something much more impressive happened though.

            Almost exploding, but more like flowing, from Giles slice, chi energy, burning white hot, cascaded down through the air, directly at Goku, who was flying right into it.  He didn't even have time to slow down as it impacted on him, and then forced him to crash back down on the floor.  When the energy finally dissipated, it revealed Goku, lying haphazardly on the cracked and broken floor, effects from throwing such powerful energy directly at it.

Buffy and Xander, no longer blinded by the glare from the explosion, stared at the scene for a couple moments before a noise from Giles got their attention.  "Now," he said weakly, slowly hovering down to the ground, not even having enough energy to keep flying, let alone fighting.

            Nodding at their mentor, they exchanged their own look, and then decided to go with Giles example and try out one of their secrets they'd been keeping from their Trainer.

            Xander, with only one chi attack that Master Fong called one of the most basic that any chi warrior could do with knowledge of how to tap their chi, but told Xander that he only had enough chi built up in him that he could only perform this attack once per day.  So far, he hadn't even used it once, but now was the best time he was going to get to.

            Buffy just pointed both her palms at Goku and focused on her inner energies.

            Moving as one, the two remaining Slayer Team fighters fired their chi attacks together.

            His right hand pointed down in the shape of a gun, Xander shouted as bright crimson energy shot out like a gunshot from the tip of his finger, "SPIRIT GUN!"

            "SLAYER STRIKE!" Out of both of her palms, two energy-stakes flew out and impacted, one on each of the Saiyan's shoulders.

            The red energy beam pounded at the center of his chest, but what made him cry out "OWW!!" was Buffy's Slayer Strikes.  He tore off his own GEO jacket to stare, almost disbelieving as bruises were forming before his eyes where the attacks had hit.

            OK, _now_ he was impressed.

Still, not too much the worse for wear; he stood back up and reignited his ki flame, still burning bright and angry.  He shot forward suddenly, rammed a fist into Giles stomach, doubling the librarian over.  Goku switched up and over instantly, while his face was at Giles chest level, Goku kicked down, sending Giles crashing down to the floor. Then Goku righted himself, looking over at Buffy and Xander.  The last two left assessed the situation, and Goku spelled it out for them. "Two down, two to go," he told him with his ever infuriating smirk. "Much, much better though."  Buffy gave a sneer, and then she and Xander blasted downward to continue.

"Not quite," Willow muttered under her breath as she forced herself off the floor, leaning on one arm. The other she pointed at Goku, and she started muttering in an unknown tongue, her eyes glowing bright green as she did.  Her spell complete, she slumped back to the floor, groaning as she lost consciousness again, "I'm out."

Goku was ready for the two of them as he smirked across the room.  He would see what these two could do still.  Too late he noticed the tiny sliver of energy, rapidly blossoming into a full-blown magical spell.  As Xander and Buffy blasted toward him, he felt his power being subdued, his muscles felt like they were lead, and this…something wrapped around him tight enough to hurt. His head slumped, even the muscles in his neck were lead, and thus below he saw green plasma rings surrounding his upper and lower torso.  *What the . . . ?* he thought and started exerting his energy, trying to flex his arms, hoping to tear the rings apart, but they refused to budge.  In fact they even refused to let him tap into his energy.

Buffy and Xander saw what happened, and gave each other a grin. Their Trainer was going to get it now.  Payback for all the bruises and painful lessons he had given them over the past few weeks.

They reached him, and together smashed their fists into his face, sending him flying backward. They moved onward, grinning, and followed up with a kick to his head, careful not to hit the plasma rings for fear of breaking him free accidentally.

Goku was fed up with this.  His ki flame returned, golden this time.  He roared out in anger, and his hair stood up and turned golden, and the powerful plasma rings were torn apart with ease.  For just a moment Buffy and Xander were startled, but then quickly continued onward.  Two hits, three hits, while Goku was still a little out of it, and he actually staggered (as far as that was possible while one flew) back a bit, before finally moving to his left, avoiding a punch from Buffy.  He blocked one of Xander's kicks, and then kicked out.  His foot smashed into Xander's torso, and the young man flew back like a rocket, until crashing into the wall, actually damaging it, and falling down.

Buffy punched with a defiant scream, and felt her fist touching something, then pain blossomed into it, and it stopped completely.  It felt like she had just broken her arm punching the hardest element known to the omniverse!

Buffy took a good look and her eyes widened.  Her fist had hit Goku's open palm, and it had done absolutely nothing.  She looked up into Goku's eyes, green, green bloodthirsty eyes.  To her credit, she stared right back into them, her resolve and that deep force that made her want to win, shining through hers just as much as Goku's overbearing, and sure-fasted confidence was shining from his.

Goku grinned, and before she knew what happened she was doubled over, pain blossoming in her belly, where she guessed Goku's fist – moving too fast for her to see - had hit her. Then she was sailing down and smashed painfully into a wall.

Goku lowered himself to the floor, letting his ki flame disappeared, but he stayed in Super Saiyan transformation. "Not bad!" Goku complimented the groaning fighters lying around his feet.

            Buffy staggered back to her feet, the only thing allowing her to do so was the same thing that forced the following words from her mouth.  "We're, not done…yet."

            Goku just stared at her, his expression unchanging.

            For a moment, just a moment, he considered going back to normal Saiyan to finish this match, but no.  She needed an example, to be shown _*exactly*_ how outclassed she and her team is.  He smirked at her, and then charged, planning on "playing dolls" with the Slayer before finally killing her.  Make the hurt just that much more personal.

            Buffy surprised herself just as much as she did Goku when she suddenly charged forward, and for that moment, she was moving at the Super Saiyan's speed.  She fell forward onto her hands, like she was doing push-ups, which meant that Goku's charging punch missed her completely.

            Next, she rolled forward, maintaining her weight on her hands, and then pushed off of the ground, launching herself into the air away from Goku.

            Raising her power some, Buffy exerted her energy to reorient herself so she wasn't flying feet first through the air, but backwards.

            Somehow, she sensed Goku fly up past her, no doubt intending on attacking her in the back to send her crashing back to the floor.  More of its own accord rather than her own, her body rotated once more so she flipped around, her left leg extended, and catching Goku in the chin with the point of her boot.

            What surprised the 1/8th Saiyan was that it actually _hurt_!

            Taking the brief reprieve, however short it was, Buffy put as much distance between herself and her Trainer as she could before turning to face him once more.  Knowing she couldn't hope to beat him as a Super Saiyan alone, she looked around for any support she could draw from the rest of her team.

            Willow was passed out from where she had cast her last spell.  Xander…she shied away from that sight, but let's just say he would not be getting back into this fight.  Giles was in much the same condition as Willow, except asleep on his knees, also no help.

            Wait a moment… Giles…  Hello idea!

            Buffy smirked and drew her gold-hilted katana.

            "A sword is not going to make a bit of difference Slayer," Goku told her, rubbing his chin.  It was cut, dripping a couple crimson drops onto her Trainer's skin.  "You can't hope to beat me in this form."

            That same…energy surge filled the Slayer with a second wind as she glared hatefully at the Saiyan.  "I'm going to win," she told him.  "Thanks Giles," she muttered privately as she channeled all of her chi energy into…her _sword_!

            She ran her fingers over the flat edge, admiring the strength that the weapon had.  As her digits danced across it, the metal was surrounded by its own aura of power.  By the time she'd taken her fingers past the tip, the sword was glowing the same as Nightblade had been when Giles had done the same thing Buffy did.

            Goku stared, his eyes wide as he felt Buffy's power suddenly increase…_way_ past his expectations for his student.  That was when he paid attention to the sword.

            Buffy felt an understanding shoot through her entire being.  She had only ever felt something like it once before, so she treated it much the same.  She let the energy build, and build, and build…until it burst.

            Faster than he could react, Buffy sliced her glowing blade through the air, but unlike Giles, just before she did she cried out, "SLAYER SLASH!!"

            In a clean arch, the energy coalesced into a single shape rather than a wave of energy, looking partly like a crescent moon, but flying with the same speed.

            Lucky for Goku, he was not rushing into it this time, but memory is not what made him dodge.  An unbidden instinct flashed through his mind, and less than a foot from it hitting him, he dodged downward, landing on the ground.

            Curious, he turned and watched as the crescent energy attack crashed against the far wall.  It did not explode however.  Instead…it left a groove that matched its forward shape (a straight line with a point on both ends) and went three feet deep before dissipating.  Goku stared, his eyes going wide.

            Just in time, he turned his attention back to the Slayer, who was charging another such attack.  He dodged it just in time as well.  That one however left a three and a half foot deep crevice.

            Worried, Goku tried to think of something.  Buffy managed to shoot two more of the Slayer Slash attacks at him as he did so.

            Finally, Goku remembered a memo he had gotten a week before, that the Slayer Team had been seen going into the Temple of Chi Magicks.  Was that what this was? He asked himself.  He could confirm later, but for right now he had to go with the assumption that these attacks Buffy was using was something Master Fong had taught her.  His best bet was to make sure she couldn't get the opportunity to use them anymore.

            Flashing out of sight, Goku advanced on the Slayer, who somehow managed to keep up enough with him to actually defend against his high-speed attack.  After that, she used her sword in the more conventional use, and it was a credit to the makers of the blade that no matter how many times she struck it against his ki shield, it never so much as cracked.  It was a credit to Buffy's strength that it also never glanced or bounced off either.

            He wasn't exactly standing still there either.  She blocked and dodged as much as she could, but her own defenses were weakening far faster than his were.

            Finally, he just caught her sword in his left fist, and held it, letting it past the ki shield to hold it against his Super Saiyan skin.  He pulled it, and her, closer, so they were face-to-face.

            "The Make Seven is a wonderful, and very impressive weapon.  Made of several of the densest, and therefore the strongest alloys the Compound knows of," he told her matter-of-factly.  "But.  It does have its weak points.  Warriors strong enough to break the alloys in their bare hands for example.  I already told you Buffy…your weapons won't make a bit of difference.  Only you can do that."

            Goku felt more pressure, the difference something like a garbage compactor crushing an aluminum can, against his skin from the blade.  Buffy inched her face closer as she put even more pressure into her sword.  "I'm going to win," she hissed at him.

            "If you're talking about the Tournament, I hope so," he told her.  "But if you're talking about this fight…" Goku's ki flame ignited all over again, and as it became more and more intense, it indicated how much the Saiyan's strength was rising.

            Being right next to him, Buffy barely needed her sixth sense to feel it.

            As a final point almost, Goku's fist squeezed, and then crushed, breaking the blade into several pieces, even as Slayer still held it.

            She tried to defend against the next hit, but it came too fast for her to even see it coming.  Goku kneed her gut, and then with his right hand, broke her neck with a chop.  If he were in his normal form, even at maximum power, the blow might have only knocked her out at the most, like you see on those spy sitcoms where the secret agent karate chops the minion on the neck and he falls to the ground like a sack of potatoes.  As a Super Saiyan, he broke her neck.

            She fell to the ground, dead.  The moment she landed, both she and Warrior X were surrounded by golden glows, indicating the Powers were reviving them.  Goku quickly, with laser thin blasts, instantly killed both Powermage and Watcher, causing them to also be revived by the Powers.  Instant death, instant revival.

"Well done, well done indeed," Goku applauded them all as they got to their feet, fully healthy with full energy to boot.  "You've improved a great deal in a remarkably short time.  Your coordination still needs a bit of work, but you've got the right ideas about fighting now.  Especially you, Mage, you actually forced me to go Super Saiyan."

"It's not fair," Buffy pouted from her corner, and everyone looked at her. "We almost had you, Super Saiyan or no Super Saiyan."

Goku laughed, and retorted, "You came nowhere close to 'having me'.  I think I proved that with that last little demonstration."

"Demonstration?" Giles prompted not knowing what to expect.

            In reply, Buffy went over and picked up the shards of her sword, showing them to the rest of her team.  "Uh…isn't that supposed to be made of some of the densest materials the Compound uses?" Willow squeaked.

Goku's smirk deepened and both he and Buffy nodded.  They all gulped and stared, the implications alone enough to make them realize what this meant exactly.

            Buffy didn't care about her broken sword though, or what it meant.

            "You weren't even trying, were you?" she growled out, angry.

            "Of course I tried," the Trainer let go of his Super Saiyan transformation, "I just didn't go all out."

            "So what is your maximum power?" Buffy demanded to know.  "How strong would we have to become to actually have a chance at beating you, no matter what your form.  No, scratch that, how powerful will I have to be to defeat you in your most powerful form?"

            Goku smirked at her, but while it held amusement, it wasn't mocking as before.  "Please, Buffy, I have to keep some secrets.  Part of my charm is my mysterious nature.  Keep's you guessing."

            "So in short," Xander answered, "more powerful than we even have the scope to imagine?"

            Goku's answering smirk told them the Warrior was right on the money.

            Buffy snorted and threw up her hands in exasperation.  "Any hints on how to get stronger?" she demanded to know.

            Goku nodded, no longer smirking, and quite serious now.

            "We'll start working on that right now," Goku told them.  "First, the higher the gravity, the more workout your physical body gets, but don't forget to rest, otherwise it won't get stronger, just more beat up.  Sleep each night counts as rest.  As for increasing your energy strength, part of that comes from increasing your physical strength, but there are exercises I'll show you right now that can help you out there."

            Each of the Slayer Team nodded.  Buffy and Xander put their jackets back on and everyone got in line to continue learning from their Trainer.

_*                       *                       *_

Fifth Week 

Buffy awoke from a pleasant dream.  She couldn't remember what it was or what happened in it, but she felt a content and peaceful relief as she came out of the dream world and into the real one.  It was the first night since they had come to the Compound when she hadn't had a nightmare about what her and her friends future would be like if she slept with Angel and unwittingly released Angelus, the demon that he had been before he regained his soul.

            Yawning and stretching the last of sleepiness from her body, Buffy crawled out of her bed and walked straight to her bathroom.  She had slept in the nude so there was no need to remove any thing as she stepped right into the sonic shower and let it do its thing.

            Clean as hypersonic frequencies can make a human body, Buffy finished getting ready, putting on her same leotard and pants that she had worn for…gosh had it already been five weeks?  As always, they felt as fresh as if they were brand new when she fit them on.

            She slid her GEO boots on, but held off on putting her jacket on, wanting to enjoy her unencumbered movement for as long as she could.  Goku, for half of the past week had shown them and pushed them all through strength-intensive training exercises.  Buffy even continued all of these exercises when not being directly trained by Goku, and as a result, she now had her GEO suit set to 250 Gs, while on average while training the gym was set to 100 Gs, which meant that she trained in over 350 Gs.

            It wasn't just that easy though.  She had visited the Clinic for the dreaded massage therapy, which really *did* hurt as much as rumor said it did, and other rapid healing techniques for overstressed muscles at least once a day.  Sometimes twice a day.

            The trips to the Clinic didn't automatically make her able to stand in 350 gravities either.  They only healed the damage to her body that standing in 350 Gs did to it, instead of having her bed-ridden for months, maybe even years to properly heal from it.

            And she wasn't the only one that had been going to the Clinic regularly.

            Willow didn't have a GEO suit, so she only trained in the gravity of the gym, but for one without Slayer stamina or healing, 100 Gs was more than enough to warrant daily Clinic visits.  Xander did have a GEO suit, which he set to only 100 Gs, meaning he trained in over 200.  Willow blamed it on Xander merging with the hyena spirit.

            Giles, who meditated more than killed himself exercising, had only ever visited the Clinic once.  To get his Universal Translator implanted.

            All of them were already awake and about this morning.  Giles, as he most often was these days, was meditating in the 'training mat' area.  Xander and Willow were at the bar, talking.

            "No kidding?" she heard Xander ask their redhead friend, who nodded back.

            "Yep.  I'm really excited about it too.  I'm sorry I won't be there this morning for Goku's training, but I'll definitely be there for this evening's training," Willow promised.

            Buffy quickly walked over to them and took her place at the counter.  "So what is it you're going to be doing this morning while Giles and I are getting our buts kicked by Goku and Broly?" she asked.

            Willow smiled.  "It's not that bad.  Besides, you guys don't really spar anymore, you just work out and train.  And if you're talking about what happened the other day on the shooting range, you've improved since then!"

            Buffy blushed as she recalled the event Willow was talking about that had happened two days previous.  Goku had taken them to the Main Gym and set up a series of targets for them all to shoot and destroy with energy attacks.  Willow, who could have used magic, used ki instead and was on par with Goku's skill.

            The targets weren't just stationary archery targets though, they were moving, flying, dodging, some were even shielded, round little probes that had the red and white target painted on them.  Lets just say that when it was Buffy's turn…it was not pretty.

            "Xander was better than me!" Buffy exclaimed to Willow's coddling.  "And don't try and change the subject, what are you doing today?"

            Willow's smile grew so wide Buffy was afraid she might accidentally split her head open.

            "Marduk, believe it or not he hates being called Arch Mage, contacted me about five minutes ago and told me that he's going to be giving me a very special lesson today.  He wouldn't say what exactly, but he kept grinning, so I know it's going to be _good_.  I'm not due there until after breakfast though."

            Buffy frowned.  The alarm should have gone off by…

            The klaxons and flashing lights suddenly started up, almost as if bidden by her thought.  They all stared and looked at each other for several moments, Xander looked over his shoulder to see Giles perfectly still, his meditation uninterrupted by the loud noise.

            Buffy waited about five more seconds before she glared up at the ceiling and surprised herself by shouting at a volume that easily outdid the alarm.  "WE'RE UP ALREADY YOU STUPID—" the volume went up just in time to cover the string of curses coming out of the Slayer's mouth.

            They all exchanged another glare and Buffy charged a ki ball and without any more warning than that, fired it at the ceiling.  The alarm cut out shortly after that.

            "You'd think after us getting up before that thing goes off for the past two weeks that they would turn it off," Buffy commented as the breakfast bar came to life.

            Noises of agreement came from her friends as they ordered their morning meals and began to eat.

_*                       *                       *_

            Willow teleported into the courtyard in front of the Mage Tower.  She smiled, and then quickly patted herself down to make sure that everything had made it with her.  The first time she'd tried to magically teleport somewhere, her clothes had shown up about a minute after she did.  Now that she finally had gotten the knack of it, she didn't use the MTC anymore.

            "Well, it's about time," Marduk snapped from directly behind her.

            Willow jumped almost a foot in the air and barely managed to suppress the scream in her throat.  She turned around and glared at her Teacher.  "That, that was, was, was…" she stuttered.

            "Mean?  Cruel?  Not nice?" he offered.  He was unadorned today; wearing what Willow might consider 'normal' clothes.  A deep purple silk blouse with no collar, and black dress pants with high-gloss leather shoes.

            Willow glared, having gotten her adrenaline surge under control and bit out, "Not funny."

            Marduk laughed loudly, echoing across the courtyard.

            "So… you promised a very special lesson.  I'm here, and now I'm waiting," Willow teased.

            Marduk nodded, and got his "business face" on, which was similar enough to Willow's own Resolve Face that she thought it deserved it's own title.

            "Correct my pupil," he spoke deeply, "Come," and he teleported away.

            Willow concentrated and reached out with her magical senses, quickly finding the trail that Marduk's teleporting energy left behind.  She also tested it against 'traps', a rather embarrassing tale of how Marduk had taught her that lesson by having her teleport, naked incidentally, into one of the public locker rooms connected to the Main Gym (for the warriors that don't have their own apartment when they're at the Compound).  The male locker room at that.

            There were no extra magical trails, or even masked trails, or masked energy signatures.  Since there was no trace of any obvious trap, or even any underlying one, Willow quickly caught up with Marduk's trail and teleported herself to his location.  Just to be on the safe side, she also prepared a levitation and shield spell for when she reappeared wherever they were going.

            A good thing too, because she appeared right next to the magic god some thousand feet in mid-air and the winds were strong enough to fling her all the way back to where she had come from, but fortunately the shield made it feel like a gentle breeze against her.

            "What I will teach you over the next few days I have only ever taught to three other individuals Willow," Marduk spoke seriously.  He looked serious too, and Willow was not of any mind to be any less serious.

            "The other Arch Mages," Willow guessed.

            He nodded.

            "From the moment you appeared here, I knew that you would be able to learn these particular types of magic.  You would have been given to one of the lesser teachers, just a Mage or a 1st level Powermage at the most.  But then…"

            "The spells I performed in the demonstration," Willow guessed again.  Marduk nodded.

            "I personally intervened and had Amana become your teacher.  After your first lesson, she agreed in my opinion of you, and got Archer to start helping her out with you.  Once they decided you were ready, and you had reached the level of Powermage, I entered the picture."

            Willow nodded, following his logic.

            "Remember the day we met?  In a flurry of emotion, you froze three Arch Mages.  Three _Arch Mages_!  Do you know what it would take to do that?" Marduk asked.  He didn't expect an answer, so she didn't reply.  "I'll be the first to admit that they were sloppy.  They should have had ready-use spells on hand, to counter anything you could have done.  But not even Amana or Archer did so, and they knew you better than any of us at that time.  The thing is…" Marduk floated slightly closer to Willow, bending down a little to look her right in the eye.  "The thing is Willow, you have enough raw talent with magic that you could probably vie for my position as the Deity of Magic.  But that's all you have, _raw_ talent."

            Marduk backed up and let out a heavy sigh.  He was looking at Willow, and it was the way he was looking at her that made her slightly uncomfortable.  He looked… like he was disappointed.

            "Last week Goku tested all of you.  Your team.  Slayer Team.  All of your teachers and trainers have seen the tapes.  Normally things in the Private gyms aren't recorded for any reason, but Goku was testing how you all handled.  Tests are always monitored in one form or fashion."  Willow nodded, indicating she understood and was not offended that the event had been recorded, and that Marduk and the others had all seen it.

            "Tell me Willow," Marduk asked slowly, pronunciating each syllable, "If you can freeze three Arch Mages in a moment of panic, why didn't you just freeze Goku in the same way and walk all over him?  Better yet, why didn't you turn him into some kind of frog or a newt or even a harmless amoeba?  I had taught you spells that could allow you to turn other mages of equal to your power into those kinds of things by that time without any sort of side effects, and I know you could have done it!  Goku isn't even a magic-user!  So please tell me why you limited yourself to a few magic bolts and a restraining spell?"

            Willow, at first was confused about what Marduk was talking about, and then she began to feel a little guilty herself, and then ashamed.  When he asked her to explain, she quickly cast her mind out for any plausible explanation as to why she hadn't thought of using more powerful spells in that instance.

            "Well… I, uh, well, um…  You see…  I think, well, I think it was because… because we were in a sparring match, and in sparring matches you're supposed to fight physically.  So I only cast physical spells, or spells that were equal to what all of us could physically do.  And… to be perfectly honest… it just never occurred to me to use any more powerful spells." Willow timidly answered.

            Marduk closed his eyes and sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.  "Willow…you're supposed to fight like you will have to fight in the Tournament," he calmly explained.

            Willow frowned with confusion.

            Before she could speak though, "In the Tournament, Willow, _anything_ goes.  _Anything_!  The only, _ONLY_, things not allowed and expressly forbidden are mass-destruction weapons.  Like creating a black hole, or maybe even some kind of weapon that destroys _mass_."

            "But… what about atomic bombs?" Willow asked.

            Marduk snorted.  "Those are limited destructive weapons.  The kind of mass-destruction we mean is the kind of weapon that can literally wipe out an entire universe, if not a huge chunk of one.  Anything and everything else beyond things like that?  Hell, it's encouraged."

            "Oh," Willow muttered, mulling over the new facts.

            "Now, next time, you'll think a little bit bigger than your fists and fireballs?" Marduk asked gently.  The redhead smiled and nodded, promising it as much to herself.

            "Good.  Because what I will teach you over the next few days will seem like so called 'atomic weapons' compared to what you already know.  They are the _14 Forbidden Arts_.  In essence, and I stress the word essence, they are the most primal and elemental magics that exist in any universe.  They go beyond what the elements are, into what they can be.  What makes these Forbidden is because these magics do not take from the surrounding mana of the universe as you have been taught to do so far.  They come primarily from your own mana, your own spirit and soul.  But it's more complicated than just that, but don't worry, I'll explain it better in a moment."

            "The reason they are forbidden, and because they come from yourself more than any other type of magic, there is the very, very real chance that using any one of them to full potential will cause all the energy of your soul to be used up in the spell.  In short, you would die.  But not die and pass on as your Wicca teachings speak of reincarnation, or religion speaks of heaven and hell.  To use any of the Forbidden Arts would risk wiping your soul out permanently.  No reincarnation.  No Heaven.  No hell.  Not even oblivion.  Your soul, per chance, would simply no longer exist."

            Willow gulped, fully comprehending _exactly_ what this meant and how dangerous it is.

            "Now, first, the names of each Forbidden Art; Pyromancy is Fire Magic, Vaposmancy is Wind Magic, Geomancy is Earth Magic, Hydromancy is Water Magic, Toreutmancy is Metal Magic, Technomancy is Magic of Technology, Necromancy is Magic of Death and resurrection, Vitamancy is Magic of Life, Astromancy is Magic of physical Space, Cosmomancy is Universal, or dimensional, Magic, Sanguismancy is Blood Magic, and Genemancy is a term for Sex Magic.  Last, and most dangerous of all, because only I know and can even perform the last two Arts.  Amana, the 2nd Arch Mage, can perform all of the others, and she is the only to do so in many millennia.  The unnamed Art, and Ethermancy, the Magic of Magick.  Only, _only_" Marduk growled, his eyes glowing, showing how serious he was, "_ONLY_ if you master each and every one of the others will I teach you either of the last two.  And even then, only one unless you master it as well as you master the others."

            "Let us begin," he intoned.  And they did.

_*                       *                       *_

            The end of the 5th week, on the last day before the 6th and final week for the Slayer Team's training in the Compound, Goku took them all to the Main Gym for another "test".  Most of the Fighters that normally would be in the middle of the Main Gym, training and fighting, were in the Observation lounge behind the two-story For-lass window, eager to watch how well the Slayer Team would fair against their Trainer.

            For every night and waking minute of free time that they had, Slayer Team had been privately training, working more and harder and harder to make themselves stronger, faster, more powerful, and above all else a better team.

            Now it was all being tested.

            "All right," Goku said, being slightly dramatic as he stood at the center of the massive dome that was the Main Gym, "I hope you're ready for this kiddies.  Because there's not going to be a timeout, and I'm thinking I won't hold back like I did last time."

            "You always talk big, but we've gotten to know you well enough when it's just talk," Slayer snapped back.  She turned to her team, Powermage, Warrior X, and Watcher.  "Are we ready for this guys?" she asked.

            They all just gave her a small nod and a wide grin, before setting their faces back to battle readiness.  She gave them her own nod before turning back to Goku and told him, "We're ready when you are Saiyaman!"

            Goku gritted his teeth a little, but let the anger pass.  His great uncle Gohan was a moron.  And he was a moron for letting himself get stuck with the same codename.

            "You don't actually think you can beat me already do you?" Goku asked them with his infuriating patented Saiyan battle smirk, confident that he wouldn't even need to transform, unless of course Willow tried to restrain his power with magic again.

            "Beat you?!  We're going to humiliate you!" Buffy told him with a growl, getting angry quickly at the insult and the always infuriating smirk. Her ki flame burst into existence, and her team followed her lead, their energy flaring up.

            Goku's smirk deepened – much to Slayer Team's annoyance – and his ki flame became visible as well.  "Let's go then," he told them.

            Working with the strategy they had worked out for the moment, the Powermage cast out both her arms, raising and igniting her magic and shouted the Sumerian word for 'Immobilize'.  Or a synonym anyway.  Goku more felt than saw the wave of magical energy coming at him, but before he could fully react, it hit him like a hammer, and just as sudden as that, he couldn't move.  He was still powering up, his energy was skyrocketing, but he could not move his body!  What was worse was that he couldn't create a ki shield or even use telekinesis!

            "How long will the spell last Mage?" Slayer asked.

            "Long enough for us to power up our attacks as much as we can, and for me to prepare a few more spells," she answered and began preparing said spells.

            Slayer nodded and gestured for Watcher and Warrior X, who drew their blades, and all of them began to power up.  They had learned their lesson the first time, and they were not about to be drawn into close quarters when the time their opponent was frozen was still undetermined.

            Goku thought of going Super right off the bat, but even as he struggled, he felt whatever was paralyzing him weaken.  He would not let Mage trap him like that again.

            As he watched, straining against the magic that held him, Warrior X and Slayer were both powering the strongest Kamehameha waves that they had yet to date performed.  Powermage was doing something else entirely, but just from seeing it, Goku knew it would be no good for him.  And if she was going to try and transfigure him into something else . . . well, they were all in for a very big shock.

            Watcher was the most surprising, because during the reprieve of non-attack from Goku, he was not powering an attack like the others, but sitting cross-legged on the floor, meditating.  Knowing what he did about the Blades of Power this was not surprising, Goku's smirk deepened and with a final roar of energy, he broke the magic bonds holding him.

            At the exact same moment, Buffy and Xander released their building attacks.

            Goku was impressed.  Much better than the last time.  First off, they were working together more, and utilizing their strengths to what he hoped was their maximum, current, potential.  He had actually expected the Powermage to start using magic like this that first round they fought like this.

            Only having enough time to brace himself, Goku caught the two-joined-into-one K-wave, and for the first half of the floor, let it push him back before he started to push on it himself.

            As he held it to a stand-still, his feet just over ten feet from the wall, he admitted to himself that their power had certainly increased since the last match.  Just not enough to make even a combined attack powerful enough to singe the hairs on the back of his hand.

            Smirking, he powered up just enough for him to almost casually toss the K-wave up to the ceiling where it exploded with a blinding flash of light.  Using the flash as a cover, Goku dove into the fight, flying parallel with the ground straight for the Slayer Team.

            Despite the glare from the explosion, the Slayer Team saw what he was doing and burst forward on their own.  In response, Goku shot up in the air to avoid a head-on-head collision.

The Team broke apart, enclosing the Saiyan.  He grinned in appreciation, seeing their much better coordination, much to the annoyance of the Slayer Team who interpreted it as some kind of put down, not understanding the Saiyan's appreciation for good opponents to fight – there were so few who could measure themselves with him.

            "Slayer Strike!" Slayer exclaimed and a stake of pure energy shot from her palms. Goku twisted aside, directly into the path of an onrushing Xander who's feet were glowing and coming directly for his face.  Goku rapidly grabbed Xander's leg and twisted his motion and threw him directly at Powermage.  She moved lightly to the right, as Warrior X twisted around his axis and stretched out his hands. Powermage grabbed his hands, and twisted him around, throwing him back at Goku.  Goku blocked one of Slayer's punches, and then Xander's glowing foot smashed directly into his face, twisting Goku around counter clockwise, while Willow, Buffy, and Xander repositioned themselves.

            Watcher came in with a yell, letting Nightblade slice down with incredible speed. Purely on his sense of ki, Goku shifted to the left, and then smashed his elbow against the sword's flat side right as it zipped by.  He brought his arm back, hitting Giles in his stomach. The watcher doubled over, but refused to let the pain slow him down. He moved with his momentum, and twisted around the arm, using it like a gymnastics beam. He let go of the sword, letting it float in mid-air for a moment, grabbed Goku's hand, twisted around and pulled the Saiyan over his shoulder.

            Goku wasn't surprised, but he was most certainly pleased with his students' improvement. Watcher held onto Goku's arm for a moment, maneuvering him right into the onrushing Warrior X and Slayer, with above them Powermage floating in air, chanting a spell and having a big dangerous looking red ball of magical energy in between her hands. Goku could choose, defend himself against the kicks, or the ball of energy. He chose the ball of energy. He raised his chi, his arms crossed up in front of his face. Slayer's kick, and Warrior X's chi kick – foot glowing with dangerous energy – smashed into Goku's stomach. Pain blossomed in his abdomen and he let out an 'oompf'. The two warriors twisted aside so Willow's ball of energy didn't hit them, and instead hit Goku at practically the same time. The ball pushed Goku down and then exploded powerfully, the shockwaves sending Goku down all the way to the floor.

            Goku did a somersault just before he hit the floor and landed on his feet. He got up and looked up at his star pupils, and grinned deeply. "All right, now this is what I'm talking about. Warm-up over," he said, and then with a roar powered up to his max without transforming, "Let's get the real match going."

            "Oh, you'll get your real match," Xander growled, and his friends nodded.

            "Team, let's do it!" Buffy half ordered, half suggested. They all gave a nod, and then with a roar – except the ever-poised Giles – their ki flames became more intense, wind whipping around them as they powered up to their own max.

            Goku knew better though.  Of all the people that he had ever trained at the Compound, he's never known anyone like Buffy.  She was like him, and not just in personality either.  She felt her blood sing when she fought, she knew how to fight and how to follow her instincts as much as her training.  She would hold just a little bit back, just like she did the last time they fought.  And seeing how much they had improved in fighting so far since then, he relished the aspect of facing her singly again.

            He smirked at them and calmly waited to see what they would try first before going in there and busting heads together.

            They flew down in a straight line, arrowing for the demi-Saiyan until they got just within range and then Slayer flew off to the left while Warrior X flew to the right and Powermage and Watcher came parallel with each other and rushed Goku.

            Slayer, from the left side started throwing ki ball after ki ball at him, apparently trying to blind him from the actions of the others, while Warrior X from the right side was firing a ki beam, which was dispersing on his ki shield.  Again, a tactic to blind him from the actions of Powermage and Watcher.

            Goku neatly dodged Watcher's attempt to attack him with his Blade, but that actually put him in the path of Powermage's oddly glowing hands, which was quite obviously a magical attack of some kind.  Like a strange after effect, Goku heard Willow's voice cry out, "Elemental Power Spirit Attack!"  Didn't change the fact that he was blasted away from them and feeling like he was getting pelted with sharp rocks, getting burned alive, cut by razor sharp winds that could strip a rhino to white bones in seconds, and drowned in water that burned as much, if not worse than the fire.

            Slayer stared, smiling brightly as she landed beside her best friend.  "Awesome!" she exclaimed.  "What kind of spell is that Wills?"

            "Wasn't a spell," the Powermage answered breathlessly.  Her energy wasn't affected, but it was quite an exertion to launch such an attack.  "It's a chi attack, like you're Slayer Strike, or Xander's Spirit gun thing.  Only I use the spirits of the four elements to power it and . . . well, you can see the results."

            "No kidding," Warrior X stared, seeing Goku pinned up against the far wall, smoke rising from him and the charred crater around him.  A black streak in front of him reveals the path that Willow's attack took him.

            Suddenly, Goku's eyes snapped open, and his energy levels blasted back to where they had been.  Everyone on the Slayer Team gulped, and Giles gripped Nightblade just a little bit tighter.

            "Xan, we're going in.  Giles, protect Willow.  Wills, see if you can come up with a succession of those attacks, or several that are even more powerful.  We need to win this, now!" Slayer shouted as she ignited her ki flame and launched herself towards Goku, who was still getting out of the crater Powermage had blasted him into.  Warrior X was right on her tail.

            "Now that . . ." Goku said as he landed on his feet, " . . . was a very . . ." he stood straight and clenched his fists tight, " . . . very . . ." he took a step forward and half a moment later Buffy and Xander were right in front of him, " . . .very good tactic!" he shouted as he side stepped both attacks and spun a couple roundhouse punches into their faces, knocking both of them to the wall on either side of his crater.

            "Distracting me with feints and blinding attacks while setting me up with a two fold primary attack.  And a damn powerful one at that.  I see much improvement," Goku smirked at them.

            Slayer actually growled and she felt that same super-adrenaline surge that had kept her going the last few times she fought Goku.

            "Shut up!" she said as she punched him in the face, actually knocking him back a few steps.

            "I'm complimenting you, and you tell me to shut up?" Goku asked as his head dodged around all of the punches Slayer was trying to hit him with.

            Watcher had caught up with his teammates by this time and Goku was forced to alter his dodging tactics, given that avoiding a well-used blade is very different from being in a fist fight.  Warrior X also joined in on the fray, giving Goku a whole slew of problems as both Slayer and Warrior X weren't the amateurs they were when they first got to the Compound, and Watcher is a living terror with that blade in his hands.

            He had to abandon the avoid tactic and blocked or reversed most of Slayer and Warrior X's attacks, and mostly worked to get away from the ebony slashes of the Watcher.

            Suddenly, he knew what they're doing, and grinned at them to communicate that he is aware.  Half a second later, Xander flinched back, like he was half-ready to dodge out of the way of something.  From the way he flinched, Goku easily figured the direction the blindside attack would be coming from.

            Ducking under a horizontal slash from Watcher, he then backflipped upwards, rotating several times to avoid Slayer's sweep kick and Warrior X's roundhouse kick.  A half a second after that, he flashed away to the direction opposite where X had indicated the attack would be coming from.

            "Surprise!" he suddenly heard just behind and above him.

            Genuinely startled, he turned and stared, only seeing Powermage fire a green energy beam that looked like two beams with one spiraling around the other.  Again, the very moment it hits him, almost point blank in the torso, he hears that ethereal after effect of Willow's voice shouting, "Special Cannon Spirit Attack!"

            It felt like he was getting drilled through by the hardest known substance there was.  Before he could even be blasted all the way to the ground, Willow repeated the attack with her other hand, sending another blast through his torso, and then she shot another with the original arm, and then another with her second.  Four attacks send the Saiyan careening for the floor, creating not only another crater, but tearing up the force-field enhanced floor as they knocked him a few more meters past the impact point.

            Stunned, briefly, he forced the energy needed to look down at whatever injury he had from the attacks.  He almost counted himself lucky as he only saw that it had ruined his tank top by burning a hole that showed his slightly reddened abs through it.

            Glaring back up at the Powermage, he now designated her the prime threat in the bout, and figured a plan to take her out as quickly as possible, if only to save himself further embarrassment.

            Kipping to his feet, ki shield up, to help him deflect any further energy or magic attacks from the Powermage, Goku jumped up and flew at top speed for the magic user.  Just before he got there though, Slayer came almost out of nowhere.

            Goku blocked her initial attack, and backed up slightly to give them both some fighting room.  He hadn't expected her speed to increase so greatly!  Deciding to test her reaction time, he started to force her into a kata, a pattern that her implant should help her into quite nicely, and then when she's set into the pattern, he'll change it on her and K.O. her, taking her out of the match and the others to carry on without her.

            The punch, kick, block pattern came quickly and easily for both of them, but Goku realized his mistake quickly when Buffy did not hold to the pattern.  In fact, she did everything in her skill bracket, which was considerable, to punch, kick, and block him in the most difficult and flare dramatic way she could and still get away with keeping up with the pattern he's holding.

            This all happened in about two or three seconds, and both warriors had already traded over a hundred blows.  Knowing she's adapting just for the sake of being adaptable, Goku was forced to change tactics once more when Powermage and Warrior X joined in the fight, Watcher barely a second behind them.

            The others didn't have the speed advantage that Slayer did, but Warrior X seemed intent on carrying more strength with his blows rather than speed, while Powermage, not used to the physical combat, entirely, utilized superior agility, dodging, weaving, and striking and moving back again wherever she could before Goku could fully react to her.

            Watcher soon joined in on the pile up on the Saiyan, and while before, and even now, Goku expected them to be hitting each other as much as him, or at the very least trying to avoid hitting one another, they moved as one, avoiding or just missing being hit by their team mates and all without taking one single fraction of power from their attacks.

            'Now this is a team,' he thought to himself as he raised his power again, putting forth the new energy into a wave of energy that he used to blast them away from him with a shout.

            As before, they were blown back, but not as far as they had been the first time he did that, and Slayer . . . she was only knocked back a good five of six feet before she charged in again, moving as fast as ever, only hitting just a little bit harder.

            "We need a new tactic," Giles pronounces, "Buffy can't keep that pace up forever."

            "Any suggestions Watcher?" Xander asks, sounding quite serious.

            Willow's eyes widened suddenly and gathered the other two near to her and tells them, "I've got an idea.  Keep him distracted.  Go help Buffy.  And try to keep him in one place if you can.  This is gonna take a little bit of..." she giggles suddenly, grinning, "... time."

            Confused, but willing to go along with their magic user's idea, the men shrugged towards one another, nodded to the Powermage, powered back up, and launched into the air to help Slayer against the Saiyan.

            Not taking anymore chances, Warrior X drew his sword and went in swinging with it.  Slayer managed to see him out of the corner of her eye, as well as feel his and Watcher's approach, and moved her head into just the right position so that X's sword only whistled by her ear rather than cut her anywhere as it aimed in on Goku's neck.

            Unfortunately, the 1/8th Saiyan saw Xander coming full on and leaned back so that he actually had a full centimeter between the blade and his skin.  He leaned back forward and tilted his head at an angle to simultaneously dodge Giles' strike and Buffy's punch.

            With a little more maneuvering, Goku managed to avoid both men's swords for a few more strikes while narrowly dodging Slayer's closer and closer attacks.  It was really quite amazing, he mused as he brought forth his full skill in 'not getting hit' and watched as with each move, each exercise of her muscles, every second of her attack and his defense, and each iota of her power, Buffy, the Slayer, became better and better, right before his very eyes.

            And he thought only Saiyans or demi-Saiyans could do that.  Or reincarnations of an annoying pink blob with an even more annoying name.

Willow finished mumbling her spell in the back of the fighting, focused on Goku, and then grinned in satisfaction.  Xander and Buffy, halfway through a double team move stopped and looked surprised at Goku.  Who wasn't moving a muscle, he just hung there. "What the . . .?" Buffy mumbled.

"Yes!!" Willow exclaimed with a satisfied grin.  Her three teammates turned to look at her.  "I froze him in time," she explained to them triumphantly.  "Now we can kick his butt uninterrupted, and the moment I break the spell - free him from his temporal prison - he'll get every single move we did on him all at once!"

Buffy and Xander were a tiny bit miffed that Willow hadn't let them in on that little strategy, but quickly pushed that aside – both realized it wouldn't have been good to rely solely on Willow's time manipulation abilities.  Besides, feral grins spread across both their faces, Slayer and Warrior in perfect sync: time for payback.  "You know," Giles stated, always the party pooper, "I can't help but feel this is cheating."  Both Buffy and Xander, as well as Willow looked at the Brit with disbelieving eyes.

"What are you nuts!?" Xander asked him shocked.

            "Are you kidding me?!" Buffy screeched at the same time.

That was as far as they came, a small rumbling drawing their attention to Goku. Suddenly the air around him vibrated and turned golden, and then Goku was no longer frozen – in fact he was no longer a simple Saiyan.  He just finished his roar, and his bloodthirsty, green eyes looked back at his students, who gulped when they saw the golden hair standing up and waving gently with all the energy that was flowing through and around them.

"Shit," Willow muttered, just before Goku flashed out of existence, reappeared in front of her and smashed his fist into her gut.  Xander, Giles, and Buffy looked shocked at the scene of Willow doubling over and gasping out in pain.

"Bad idea," Goku growled and then smashed the magic user down to the floor with a massive overhead double-handed punch that sent extreme pain through her back. Willow landed with a painful thud, and she groaned as she turned herself over onto her back.

"_'Why didn't you just freeze him, and walk all over him, he's not a magic user,'_" Willow muttered in disgust and then slowly turned herself back over and forced herself onto her hands and knees with difficulty from her pain. "Marduk, you bastard, I'm gonna kill you," she added groaning, as above her; the fight was going on full throttle, and the Slayer Team was /_not_/ on the winning side.

            Goku had been ready for Powermage's spell, having gotten a nice little preview of what she was capable of at the beginning of the fight.  The second she tried to hold him in place again he went Super Saiyan.  Because it was a temporal freeze spell, it was not instantaneous, but in the equivalent of a second in his frozen state, he transformed, and as expected, his energy wash alone was enough to neutralize her spell.

            Now the real fight had begun.  He wasn't fighting at his maximum power yet, but Goku figured if they could handle, as normal humans, the beginning levels of a Super Saiyan in what was actually a few magnitudes more powerful than it was in its normal environment, they could survive their first Tournament.

            What was surprising the heck out of him, as he blocked and dodged their renewed attacks, was that they were more than handling it.  They were practically meeting him head on.

            For whatever reason, whether they just weren't expecting it or they were genuinely afraid for their now immortal lives, during the first test, after he had gone Super Saiyan, the entire team, with the exception of Slayer, crumbled under fear and practically gave up.

            Now, it would seem they were expecting him to go Super Saiyan, and secondly, all of them were just as determined as they had been in the beginning to beat him.  As everybody at the Compound knows, a fight is only half of what happens in the ring.  The other half, the important half is mental.  If you let fear or pride control you, chances are unless your opponent is a complete buffoon; you're going to stand a large chance of losing.  And the same went for your opponent.  If you can make him just a little bit afraid, intimidate him just enough, you've got it in the bag.

            Goku had the first test in the bag after he went Super Saiyan.

            Now . . . well, it was no longer 'in the bag', but neither was it for the Slayer Team.

Punches and kicks were traded between Warrior X, Slayer, and Goku.  Watcher joined in the fray, slicing his sword down at the Super Saiyan. Goku bashed the sword out of the watcher's hands, flinging it flipping end over end until it embedded itself in a wall.  At the same time Goku fired a massive ball of energy at Buffy and Xander. The thing exploded right in the middle of them, and the shockwave sent them flying away from Goku.  Watcher extended his hand and a moment later his blade had flown back into his hands.  Goku parried the next sliced, and kicked Watcher aside. Then while Buffy and Xander were still recovering from the massive blast, Goku extended his hands, drew in his energy and screamed, "FINAL FLASH!"  The resulting release of energy was incredible, wide, raw, and almost all-powerful.  Buffy and Xander looked with shock at the massive beam hurtling straight at them.  The combined their ki into a powerful shield, and were flung back as the beam exploded with such force they were rattled through even with their combined shield.

This left Goku free to take out his biggest threat: the one with the most amount of techniques and abilities he could /_not_/ easily defend against, abilities that if connected and completed fully could be fatal: Powermage.  The mage was muttering a string of words, and fired a beam of energy at the Super Saiyan intending to turn him into a toad or something worse.  Not surprisingly, after Goku had freed himself from her time freeze, he smacked the beam aside and then rammed a fist into the mage's stomach, doubling her over. Then he slammed her down to the ground with a double-handed hammer blow. The Powermage groaned in pain at the impact of the hands, and more so when she crashed painfully to the ground. Goku then blasted down, and as Willow weakly fluttered open her eyes, she whispered, "Oh . . . crud."  A moment later Goku's foot crashed straight through the redhead's stomach, coming out the other end.  Coughing up blood she lifted her head, seeing the hole the Super Saiyan had made and muttered, "Shit."  Then her head slumped and she died.  Willow was out of the fight, even if the Powers did revive her before the fight was over, which was doubtful according to Goku, a hole that size took some time healing up.

The Super Saiyan turned around and looked at the shocked remainder of Team Slayer, who looked at their fallen comrade. Then their faces turned grim, and Goku knew he was in for one hell of fight. Good! He smirked, and said, "Now that the weakling is out of the way, we can have ourselves a real fight. Let's go."

            Buffy stared, briefly stunned at the display of casual brutality from the man that was supposed to be helping them to become stronger.  In her conscious mind, she knew that eventually Willow would be OK, every other part of her was screaming in outrage that first of all her best friend, Willow Rosenberg, computer expert, Powermage and all around very nice person, had been killed in cold blood.  Second of all, GOKU HAD KILLED WILLOW!!

            A terrifying, bloodcurdling scream literally rocked the Main Gym.  A tremor that knocked several of those standing on the floor (in the observation dome) onto their asses, and even made the air tremble slightly, making those in the air turn towards the source in alarm.

            Buffy, the Slayer, stood about ten feet above the floor, hovering in the air, but facing the rather gory display of her best friend's body.  Her ki flame was raging around her like it never had before, the only _true_ outward display of the girl's pain and anger.

            As they all just stared, too shocked at her outburst to do anything at this moment, Slayer's power began to rise, even more than it had before.  Even more, much to the shock of all the men watching, than the girl's power had been in the Slayer Team's private training sessions.  Goku especially was shocked at the level of power his prize pupil was displaying.  He never expected her power to rise _this_ much even in the entire 6 weeks that they were here!

            Buffy screamed in pain and rage again, and it was immediately followed by a very large spike in her ever-rising power level, and at the same time that an even longer tremor passed through the Main Gym, something . . . _changed_ about the Slayer's ki flame.

            Goku was the first to notice it, and he pushed himself off the floor and into the air, although away from the raging Slayer, not sure what she would do next.  Then, she screamed, and her power rose even higher, again and whatever happened to her ki flame happened again, only a little bit longer this time.

            The tremors didn't stop this time, but just kept getting worse and worse as the Slayer's power kept rising slowly, but it just didn't stop going up, or even slowed enough to call it a pause.  Goku's eyes went wide with amazement when she let out a fifth, terrifying, heart-wrenching scream, which seemed hollow and went on for far longer than the others did.  Because Buffy's power had just surpassed Ryu's maximum power and was rapidly approaching his alternate twin, Broly's power level.  Untransformed of course.

            The flicker in Buffy's ki flame was no longer a flicker.  Instead, it was like an inner flame was struggling with the ki flame that raged around her now, trying to burst forth and be free.  A sharp, golden color, not too dissimilar from Goku's own ki flame, surrounded Buffy's body and was throbbing as it kept trying to push the colorless, angry ki flame she had displayed up until that point, out of the way.

            Goku knew he should be doing something, even if only continuing the match with Xander and Giles, but . . . he couldn't.  This . . . whatever was happening to Buffy, it was too important, too fragile, and far too beautiful to risk distracting her now.  Not when she was on the cusp of reaching and attaining a power that she had only ever dreamed of before.

            With a final, terrifying scream, and with the tremors reaching the highest point and it felt as though the entire building the Main Gym was in would topple over any second, the golden glow around Buffy's body intensified to a near-blinding point before exploding outwards in a wave of energy that rivaled just about everything Goku had yet thrown at the Slayer Team.

            When everyone could see again, the shakes had stopped, the screaming had quit, and Buffy hovered there in the air, tears streaming tracks down her soot-covered face, and a bright, airy _yellow gold_ ki flame surrounded the Slayer!

            Half an instant after it took everyone to take all that in, she disappeared, moving so fast that everybody lost track of her for several moments.  Even Goku couldn't track her until she landed her fist in his stomach, doubling the Super Saiyan over from both the speed and the strength at which the attack had landed.

            While he was reeling from that pain, Slayer doubled her fists up and brought them down as fast and as hard as she possibly could, her arms surrounded by the yellow fairy-fire of her life force, to the middle of his back, knocking him down into the floor, which caved in a little from the pressure being exerted on it with a small crater about the size of Goku's body.

            Seeing that their foe would not be moving for several seconds, Buffy flew higher into the air, staying directly above Goku and started pooling her energy towards an attack.

            Warrior X and Watcher both saw this, and quickly decided to lend their own attacks towards the effort.  So, Xander flew around off to the side while Giles flew closer to the downed Super Saiyan and began prepping his own Kamehameha wave.

            Xander, more for variety and the off chance of causing more damage to the man that had just blatantly killed one of his best friends, charged a different attack.  He could now, thanks to both Buffy's and Master Fong's training sessions, perform the Spirit Gun attack several times a day, with differing levels of power behind it.  Of course, with _all_ of his power behind each, he could only pull it off about five times before his spirit energy was tapped out and he had to rely solely on ki and physical energy to continue.

            Goku groaned in pain, getting to his knees and rubbed his stomach a little where Buffy had punched him.  That had _hurt_!  A lot too.  And he was a Super Saiyan.  With his ki shield up . . .

            That had been what really surprised him.  The only way that Buffy's fist could have reached him, like it did, and cause this kind of pain, was if her own ki shield had been of perfectly equal frequency and amplitude but of exact opposite phase to his own ki shield - thus the two canceling each other out . . . or slightly more powerful than the one he had been projecting.

            He was gonna go with slightly more powerful, since the fact of _anybody_ matching ki energy frequencies _and_ amplitude but opposite phase with an opponent in the middle of a fight was so outrageous that . . . no, she just got a major power boost and he had underestimated what that had done to her energy.  That was all.

            Several energy spikes around him suddenly caught his attention and he looked up just in time to see Giles finishing powering up his own kamehameha attack, and on the other side, Xander was pointing his finger like a gun at him, which could only mean one attack in particular, and then he shifted his attention to the largest spike he sensed, and he couldn't repress a slight shiver and a gulp of anxiety at the level.

            _Students_ should _not_ be _THIS_ powerful!!

            Maybe by the time of the Tournament, after the end of this initial Training, three more months on their homeworld, and even an additional re-training session thrown in there adding another week.  But before the initial training was even through?!!

            "KAMEHAME**HA**!!" Giles screamed, firing a blinding bluish white energy wave directly at the stunned Super Saiyan.

            "SPIRIT GUN!" Xander shouted himself as he "pulled the trigger" in his mind and a large, bright red burst of energy shot out, homing in on Goku himself.

            Above, the Slayer was gathering all of her energy, all of it; ki, chi, it didn't matter.  She was not going to let Willow's cold-blooded murder go unavenged.  Even when it felt like her entire body was about to burst or self-destruct with the amount of energy she was building up, she kept gathering even more of it for striking down the golden haired monster that had killed her best friend.

            Even as she watched Giles and Xander fire their own attacks, knowing that neither would do any good as she kept her eye and really all of her senses on the target, she pooled every last drop of her power into her next attack.

            As before, despite feeling like she was going to erupt any second from all the energy, a sudden knowledge struck the rage-filled Slayer.  Knowledge which she used, taking the last of her energy and focusing all that she had gathered between her cupped hands at her side.  The energy, first just a trickle of power, then a river, and then she let loose the floodgates.

            As everyone watched, a small molten ball of yellowish energy formed between the golden Slayer's hands as she hovered directly above the Super Saiyan.  It grew to about the size of a large softball, except made of energy and very, very bright.  Almost too bright to look at.

            As Goku was just getting to his feet, and Watcher and Warrior X's attacks were well on their way to him, Buffy's face twisted in anger, and maybe even with the effort of delivering her latest attack.

            Throwing the ball of energy like it really was a softball, directly at Goku, the Slayer shouted, her voice echoing with the level of power she had gathered and was using, "**SLAYER FLASH!!**"

            The ball of energy flew downward fast.  Faster than anyone expected it too.  And certainly faster than even a Super Saiyan at present level could react to, as he only had time to look up before it was upon him.

            Even as Giles and Xander's energy attacks were mere feet from striking Goku dead-on, Buffy's Slayer Flash came to rest about one foot directly above the gold fighter's head.  And then it exploded.

            All of a sudden, everyone understood why the small little ball of energy was so bright and difficult to look directly at.

            The Slayer had just created a miniature _sun_.

            The ball of raw plasmatic energy reached Goku, who raised his ki shield. At that moment Xander's and Giles' energy attacks hit Goku, and he took the brunt, as the Slayer's attack hovered there eerily, producing an odd high pitched sound full of devastating potential. While Goku was still protecting himself from the two combined attacks, something stirred in 'Slayer Flash' mini-sun. Even Buffy looked astonished at it, her instincts telling her the results would be devastating but not fully understanding what would happen. The ball expanded in size, sending out small pulses of raw energy in shockwaves, but they didn't really do anything. Then the mini-sun darkened rapidly, blackness engulfing its insides; the mini-sun was undergoing a mini-_nova_! Suddenly it collapsed in on itself, shrinking rapidly, another instant later it was reduced to a pinprick, and then . . . all went white.

            The entire gym was reduced to a white glare, everyone closed their eyes against it. Goku raised the power in his ki shield, Buffy, Giles and Xander quickly following his example. Then from pinprick from whence the light had come, the massively powerful yellow shockwave of energy was released. The whole room was reduced too a deafening sound as the sphere of energy expanded with incredible speed. It blasted against Goku's shield, and went through it before Goku could reinforce it. The lower part of his pants and the remainder of his shirt wrapped around his torso were shredded, and then the energy attacked his body, forcing him flat.

            The shockwave reached Giles and Xander then, and they were flung back like feathers in the wind. The soared back side by side, until they crashed painfully against the force field guarding the gym's walls. Buffy pushed against the shockwave with her hands, the energy washing around her, but it took every last bit of available power to keep herself from being swept aside like her two friends. Perhaps using that attack hadn't been such a good idea after all, she thought. The gym groaned in protest as the energy blasted against its shields. A few sparks at the generators indicated that they didn't come out unscathed.

Unfortunately, Willow was dead and unable to defend herself. She was pulled along by the shockwave not like a feather by the wind, but like a feather in a volcanic eruption. Her healing body bounced off two force field walls before coming too a stop, her body singed, her supposedly invincible blue jumpsuit becoming torn and ripped under the onslaught, leaving her with a barely modest strip of cloth across her upper body, and shredding her pants legs into strips, and leaving only a toga like wrap around her waist and whatever remained of her panties intact - if the others weren't preoccupied with trying to stay alive they'd have some interesting words about her choice of underwear for sure.  For once, Willow had foregone the leotard undergarment and put on a silk shift with matching g-string, green in color.

            Then, as fast as it came, the blast was over, leaving a crater and lots of smoke where Goku stood.  Xander and Giles carefully opened their eyes and looked at the column of smoke. "Did we get him? Did we get him?" Xander asked excitedly, the energy of the attack still messing with his sixth sense; he couldn't feel Goku's ki.

The three remaining living members of the Slayer team kept looking at the smoke, and as the charge in the air dissipated they slowly could feel again. "Apparently not," Giles said slowly getting up, as did Xander.

Goku came walking out of the devastation, his upper body naked, and his pants torn in many places. Bruises and cuts, and burns all over his body, but it was obvious the damage was all superficial, he may be looking worse, but he really wasn't that much worse for wear. He casually made some stretching exercises, grinning deeply. Tangling with a nova had made him forget all about his shock of the surprising strength and skill of his charges, now he was all Saiyan – loving every moment of the battle.

He was still smirking and stretching as he enthusiastically said, "Wow, you guys - especially you Slayer - are far more powerful then I ever expected you to get while training here. As your trainer, I must be doing something right!" He smiled at his little joke, and then the harmless smile turned to the dangerous battle smirk of a Saiyan, and he said, "All right then, time to kick it up a notch. You've only been fighting the low end Super Saiyan, so let's see how you fair against one a bit more powerful."  With a quick yell his ki flame returned, and then standing calmly he raised his ki quite a bit.

"No, fucking way, that blast should have taken him out but HE'S POWERING UP!?" Xander yelled out in frustration. "G-man, exactly how far does that bastard's reserves go?  Please, tell me it isn't endless." Giles uncharacteristically growled out in frustration.

            Buffy screamed. Her scream was filled with frustration and anger, it was primal, her Slayer instincts vaguely telling her she'd failed to protect one of her friends and that was absolutely unacceptable. She shot downward, her golden flame of ki crackling with raw power. She connected her punch with Goku, on his outer arm as he blocked it. Then followed a flurry of blows, each blocked by the Super Saiyan, who in turn attacked himself, which she blocked.

            Warrior X and Watcher's jaws dropped at the display, and for a moment they just looked at the two super warriors in awe. Then X got his bearings, his ki flame burning bright again, and hissed, "Let's go!" Giles brought out of his stupor, nodded determinately. X shot at Buffy and Goku, Giles right behind him.

            From a distance, and knowing Buffy would dodge successfully, Giles lashed out with an energy wave from Nightblade, a move that had surprised the Saiyan in their last battle.  As expected, Buffy easily moved out of the way of the oncoming wave of uncontrolled white energy.  Unfortunately, so did Goku.

            Xander, in a bid right after Giles' failed attempt, charged another full power Spirit Gun and fired it, focusing only on Goku.  And at a critical moment, just as the Super Saiyan was setting up to block another fury from the Slayer, the blast of spirit energy connected in his blind spot, adding another burn to the middle of his back.  The distraction of pain and attention was just what Buffy needed to capitalize to land a full fury of unguarded blows against the Super Saiyan, adding to his injury.  He quickly pulled himself back together however and resumed the battle with Slayer.

The two fighters quickly joined Buffy in attacking Goku, but Goku was far faster than the two, and so not in the mood. The last few seconds fighting Buffy had sent his Saiyan instincts in overdrive. He was facing a challenge – as long as he refrained from seriously powering up – something Goku did not face often. He wanted to measure himself with her, and Giles and Xander's interference most assuredly got in the way of that. With a double feint to his left, Goku went to the right. Buffy fell for it, leaving the two less powerful warriors all alone to the Super Saiyan.

Grinning Goku blasted a hole in Giles chest, sending him flying aside, killing him even before he smashed against the force field. Goku ducked underneath one of Xander's punches, smashed his own into his gut. Xander doubled over in pain, before he even knew what happened Goku had twisted around his axis, and snapped Xander's neck with a devastating kick, letting him fall unceremoniously to the floor.

            "There, just us," Goku said with a grin. Buffy saw her two friends slump in death, her golden energy crackling.

She screamed in indignation, screeched even, "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!!" and with that, flew at Goku with everything she had, and more. She pushed herself to greater heights with every punch raising her energy even if there was nothing left to raise it with. Goku was going down, it was that simple to her. But her punches did not often break through Goku's defenses and his all the more to her. She went into a cold fury, only the enemy and her rage was what mattered. Vaguely she heard Goku tell her she would never beat him if she was out of control. Satisfyingly she managed to land a solid right punch across his chin, making his head snap back a little, and sending him back. He pushed his feet out though, catching the unaware Buffy in her gut, sending her back as well.

            Xander, not instantly dead as everyone had thought, was mere moments away, but for the moment his paralyzed body was watching Buffy fight on with a fury and wildness he had never seen in her before.  And he also knew, from her erratic movements and her slowly dwindling well of energy, that she was letting her instincts take control.  Something he'd had trouble with from the beginning and had worked to control ever since.

            If this kept up, they would lose even worse than they had the first time!

            Determined to help his friend in some way, _any_ way, he cast his mind out for any possibility, no matter how crazy or remote.  Suddenly, at his call, a memory came forth.  Master Fong keeping him out of his body, and being able to go anywhere in the Compound, even into Giles mind!

            Together, with everything that had been drilled into him about energy control and energy transfer, a large part of healing with Chi Magicks is the transfer of life energy from one source to the one needing healing, Xander began to concentrate, remembering the words and everything else that he would need to cast his 'spirit' along with all of his 'spirit energy' out of his body the same way that Master Fong had done to him.  The key, first of all, was that had to be dead.

            Not a problem.

            Within moments of gathering his energy, Xander's body died, and his spirit was ejected from the mortal coil.  Not wasting any time, recalling what Master Fong had also said about the Powers reviving him upon death unless prevented, and even those prevention methods were extremely temporary, ghost-Xander quickly flew to the exhausted Buffy's tired frame, and without thought, possessed her.

            Actually . . . possess isn't the word.  Bonded with seemed to fit the description better, because that's what it felt like!  One second Xander was there, in her body, trying to figure out how to give her his spirit energy, the next, their energies merged in a way that should have been impossible, at least according to what Master Fong had explained to him, and then the merged energies pooled together and they easily doubled, before Xander suddenly found himself drawn back out of Buffy's body, and back into the darkness of his own.

            Buffy didn't know, or care where her new wind had come from, but she didn't let it go to waste.  Instead of wasting time on gathering the full amount of energy she could put into it again, she formed two, much smaller molten yellow energy balls in her hands, about the size of ping pong balls.

            With a shout, and throwing both her hands at Goku, Buffy attacked, "**SLAYER FLASH!**"

            As before, the smaller balls flew out faster than Goku expected, even faster, probably because they were smaller, than the original attack, each sphere stopping on either side of him before expanding to the size of large beach balls, and even quicker moving onto the nova phase.

            Goku had prepared, but still, being attacked by close range novas from both sides, at least half of each got through his defense.  As he was recovering, after the energy had dissipated, Slayer flew in and began another furious assault, which he heartily joined in.

            After a bout of attack/block, block/attack, Slayer finally saw an opening and capitalized on it while her super-charged brain also thought ahead of how Goku would defend or counter it.  She sent a roundhouse kick to his briefly unguarded ribs and simultaneously threw up her arm to block his counter-punch.  Unfortunately, she missed the second fist.

            The force of both blows sent both fighters flying away from each other, landing on the floor a short distance away.  Slayer didn't even land, as she caught the floor with her hand and cart wheeled herself back onto her feet.  Goku just landed on his feet.

            Taking a moment to breath, both warriors glared at the other and immediately got back into combat postures and gathered their energies once more.

            "**KAMEHAMEHA!!**" both warriors screamed and shot the two massive beams of energy at each other. The two blasts collided and struggled for dominance. At their collision point they grew in size as more and more energy was poured into them from both sides. The two warriors flew at each other at the same time, shortening the beam, but enlarging the middle part all the more. The both of them screamed out continuously, as only the middle part was really separating both. The middle part had already become twice as tall as either of them, and was flashing violently. Bolts of energy crackled out from it, smashing into the ground, or the ceiling, occasionally singing the warriors.

            "YOU'RE . . . GOING . . . DOWN!!" Buffy screamed with effort, pushing forward, putting more strain on the colliding energy.

On the sidelines Xander, Giles, and Willow were revived at almost the same instant, and the first thing they saw from their place on the floor was the raging battle of energy.  They could do nothing but stare in awe.

            After a few moments though, they became aware that the others were also now alive and awake and they soon gathered near to the 2-story window of the observation area.  Before they could really say much to each other, let alone even greet one another, there was another flash of energy from the still clashing warriors.

Even though Buffy could not see Goku, she _knew_ he was smirking at her, and it drove her onward even more. Finally the energy could no longer be contained, and exploded outward in every direction. Both warriors continued onward, going straight through the energy.

            Everybody else in the Gym, mainly Giles, Willow, and Xander, weren't quite as fortunate and had to do a little bit more work to dodge being vaporized by the excess energy.

            "Holy _SHIT_!" Xander cursed as he flew upwards and tried to avoid one of the blasts of energy.

            Willow, seeing this, and knowing exactly what she had to do, concentrated and focused what remained of her magical energy.  Physically, she had been fully revived, but to fully revitalize her magical energies, it would require a great deal of rest and mediation after the battle finally ended.  But for now, she made due with what little remained, and suddenly a barrier shield came up between the rest of the Slayer Team and the still clashing Slayer and Super Saiyan.

            When several more of the blasts of excess energy aimed itself at the Slayer Team, it hit, and then dissipated against Willow's mystical barrier.  All across the rest of the Gym, everywhere the destructive energy went, craters or explosions of surprising magnitude flashed.

Goku's greater experience with this won over, and his punch connected with Buffy's cheek. Her head and body were flung back, sailing back, blood flying from her mouth indicating her broken jaw. The both of them somersaulted backward and landed on the floor. Goku was ready, and examined Buffy; her energy was rapidly decreasing.  "You can't win," Goku stated with a smirk.

Buffy lost it, completely this time, all she saw was red, and she growled. It startled Goku: the growl was not that of a human, but of a beast. Buffy was no more; there was only the Slayer, possibly influenced with some raging Hyena emotions as well, and with a burning need to defeat the Super Saiyan across from her.

Her body shuddered as it drew upon every last tidbit of energy it could take from itself and around her – adrenaline, hormones, instincts, ki, electrical signals in the brain, and even heat.  More energy than Buffy had any right to be able to handle, and indeed probably couldn't.  Buffy's ki flame crackled wildly suddenly, becoming shakier, uncontrolled spikes, and bolts of energy flying around at the outer edges.  And again, where no one, not even Goku or Buffy herself noticed, there was a tiny flash of gold light around her pupils, gone before it was even there to begin with.  With a bloodcurdling scream Buffy shot forward suddenly, faster then she had ever moved before. Goku's eyes widened, he was startled by the inhuman growl, now the sudden speed acceleration, and as Buffy came closer, her eyes - empty with the exception of inhuman blood thirst - gripped him.

Goku froze for just a moment and that was all the time the Slayer needed. A devastating punch connected with Goku's chin, right on the unguarded nub of nerves there, followed by a rather ominous crack. Buffy's fist continued onward, launching the Super Saiyan off his feet, and twisting him on his own axis through the air. He landed a moment later, side of his face first to the floor, his body twisting onward, no way enough to break his neck, but enough to twist his nerves even more, the combination too much. Goku's golden flame disappeared, his hair turned back to black, and then he skidded onward a few more meters, rolling over, before coming to a stop – unconscious.

Buffy bristled, breathing in and out heavily like a bull.  She was only vaguely aware that Goku had lost his transformation.  She took a step forward, determined to finish it . . . and then her ki flame flickered and died. Her legs crumpled beneath her, unable to support her weight any longer, and she sagged to her knees.  She had demanded too much of her body, it had literally self-destructed, boiled itself internally.  Her vision swam as her organs burned out, muscles ruptured, and her brain liquefied in her own skull.

Still, she was determined to keep going, the only thing she still felt was the need to kill and protect her friends that way.  Buffy was reduced to pure Slayer instincts and nothing more.  But determination was no longer enough, with blood flowing from her ears, nose and eyes, she keeled over, crashed with her face and chest against the hard floor, and lay still.

            "Oh my Goddess," Willow gasped as she stared at the suddenly quiet scene.

            There was a long and eerie stillness in the Gym all of a sudden.  And then Xander had to be Xander and go and ask, "Did Buffy just K.O. a Super Saiyan?"

            More silence.  Thoughtful silence this time.

            "Uh . . . yeah," Willow answered.

            "Does that mean we won?"

            This time, after another minute or two of eerie quiet, Giles answered, "Well, we were all killed, or died in the act of knocking him out . . ."

            "But."

            "But . . ." Giles added, "Buffy _did_, as you put it, K.O. him, so . . . yes.  I do believe we won."

            "YES!"

            Xander fell to his knees, his arms up in the air in exultation.  Then he quickly got up and started doing the Snoopy dance, chanting, "We won!  We won!  We won!"

            "Xander!" Willow snapped again, but he wasn't really paying attention, so she just ran over to Buffy's body by herself, examining the extent of her friend's injury to see how long it would take her to heal.

            What she saw . . . 

            Xander finally stopped his victory celebration when he saw Willow suddenly fall weakly to her knees and start puking a short ways from Buffy's body.  Buffy's dead body, he realized as he felt the absence of her life force.  Saddened now, Xander sobered his celebration and started to go over to his friends, but Willow put up a hand that stopped him.  His concern for Buffy overrode his common sense though, to such an extent that he still didn't notice Willow's lack of attire, nor did she herself, or Giles.

            "Don't . . ." she started to say, but couldn't finish.

            Right about that moment, they all heard an unfamiliar groan, and it certainly wasn't Buffy.

            Goku was in more pain than he'd been ever since his first Tournament.  And remembering such an embarrassing moment in his life, only added to his pain as he struggled his way back to consciousness.  Wondering why he hurt so much, he went back over his last few memories.

            That's right, the fight with Slayer Team.  Buffy and him going full at it, and then . . . the change.  The more animal than sentient creature feel to the Slayer as she growled at him, and then she came at him with completely inhuman speed and hit him with a punch so . . .

            Oh.

            Goku wasn't very familiar with being knocked unconscious, but he did have experience.  Slowly, careful of his injuries, because apparently the Powers hadn't saw fit to fully heal him yet, he sat up, rubbing his jaw, which he was sure was broken, or at least cracked.

            Ever more careful, he hobbled to his feet and holding one hand to his ribs, the other to his jaw, he began to limp his way across the floor to where he noticed most of the Slayer Team was waiting and watching him.

            Despite the pain that talking would cause, Goku needed to assure them that the test was over, so risking looking like a wuss, he spoke, "It's all right," he said with a heavy wince, "Fight's over.  I was knocked out . . . so you guys win."

            That was when he noticed that none of the Slayer Team were particularly ecstatic, in fact all were very subdued at the most, and Willow was on her knees with a mess in front of her, crying.  His concern shown on his face, and after several minutes, she finally noticed and answered his look.

            She pointed behind her, where he finally noticed the still-laying Slayer, and said with a weak and trembling voice, "B-b-b-Buffy's d-d-dead."

            Goku nodded, being careful of both his injury and the redhead's emotions.  Then he gestured for her to continue.  "L-l-l-l-l-look . . ." was all she could say before dissolving back into tears and almost puking again.  Braver then she felt she should be, but her compassion demanding it, she crawled back to Buffy's broken form.  Xander knelt down with the body as well, and Giles walked to behind him and looked down as stoically as his emotions mustered.  Xander and Giles looked at the broken body of the Slayer, what remained of her brain running from her ears and pooling beneath her.  Half a second later, looking very green, Xander quickly turned back around and made his own mess on the floor.  Giles cried.

            Confused, Goku limped a few more spaces until he could look down on the Slayer's dead body, which should have healed by now he thought.  Until he actually looked at her.  Pale, and working hard not to throw up himself, Goku closed his eyes and shied away from the sight, turning back to the rest of the team.

            He'd never seen it, but he'd heard about fighters that pushed their bodies and their limits so far that they quite literally self-destructed after a fight.  And not emotionally, but their bodies just broke down, some organs and body parts exploding, others just wearing out and no longer able to function.  He couldn't imagine the force of will power it would take to do something like that.

            A golden glow faintly went over Buffy's body, and although she still looked like a mess, Buffy slowly, bit by bit, opened her eyes.  "You're awake," Willow said with a relief she shouldn't be feeling after so long with them reviving all the time.

            "Win?" Buffy croaked out with difficulty.

            "Yes, but you're dead," Giles was the one to answer.

            "Dead?" Buffy asked weakly as she was still healing up by the Powers immortality.

            "Dead," Willow said, tears still streaming from her face, but smiling. "As in your brains are leaking out of your ears."

            Buffy blinked and looked over.  As she kept looking, she saw Willow's breasts, her naked torso, and despite Willow's hunched over position, her silk g-string panties.  Willow noticed Buffy's odd look, blinked, and finally noticed Xander's lecherous grin.  Curious and concerned, Willow looked down and instantly her face was as red as her hair as she, in vain, tried to cover her revealed skin, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Nice," Xander commented, and Buffy managed a smile that was both supportive and filled with humor.

            "Panties during training?" Buffy whispered.  Giles of course, his ever-British self, had turned away, while Goku smirked at the bonding going on between the members of 'his' team.

Willow glared at her two friends, and told them, "Perverts."  She mumbled a spell and then, with a flash of green light, she was once again fully clothed.

*                       *                       *

Apartment 

Two hours later, Buffy had finally been healed.  Since the Powers saw fit to restore her pain receptors last she suddenly got assaulted with a bunch of aches that probably wouldn't go away until she had a chance to properly stretch and rest. Goku had been healed too of course, both having needed a trip to the Clinic after the fight.  Despite the Slayer being dead, it had taken an unusual amount of time for her to fully revive.  Self-destruct deaths weren't typically an issue that came up in the Compound.

            They were all now sitting around the Slayer Team's apartment, Buffy pacing, Willow and Xander on the couch, Giles in a recliner, and Goku in a seat taken from the nearby table.  They'd been just sitting there, with the exception of the pacing Slayer, for the past half hour, since Goku had been released from the Clinic.

            Finally, the impatient blonde couldn't take the silence anymore and boldly proclaimed to the 1/8th Saiyan, "OK, so I beat you.  Yay me.  Now what?  I mean, you said we had to talk Goku, so we came here to talk.  Now what's to talk about.  I beat you.  Simple as that."

            "There's nothing simple about this Buffy," Goku countered seriously.

            "Then start with the simple stuff and we'll move onto complicated after we deal with the hard stuff, because just sitting around here staring at the walls is wasting time that we could be using to train!"

            Everybody stared at her in shock.

            "You can't be serious Buffy!" Xander exclaimed.

            "Buffy, what do you think it is that we just did, if not a training session done to the max?" Giles tried to figure out what was going through his Slayer's head.

            "Exactly!" she exclaimed.  "And three out of four were killed while the fourth died anyway while the opponent was only knocked out!  Beating you, Goku, has been our primary goal from the get go, but while I may have just done that, I'd rather be alive to gloat over your vaporized corpse than settle for the half-victory we got today!"

            Inside, Goku couldn't help the swelling bud of pride he felt for the warrior that had been his student.  Outwardly, he kept his face as neutral as possible and responded to the blonde with, "I'm glad to hear that I've had that much an influence on your training.  And I'm extremely pleased at how powerful all of you have become.  None more so than you Buffy.  However what I need to talk to you about is not about your training, at least not entirely."

            "Then what is this about?" Willow asked.

            "Buffy," Goku turned back to face the Slayer, "you have surpassed all that I could teach you.  I am no longer you, or your team's Trainer.  I'll be more than happy to train with you and even teach you a few more tricks if you like, but given what just happened in the Main Gym . . . you can only do better on your own.  You have the knowledge and the know-how to continue your training, and you yourself could continue to train the rest of your team, of that I have no doubt.  But the main thing is, I'm no longer your Trainer."

            Buffy nodded, actually looking a little sad, but she accepted what he said without complaint or argument.  Another way that she had matured, she realized internally.  And another way that she hadn't matured, "And the other reason you dragged us here to 'talk'?"

            Goku smirked.  "You still aren't strong enough to win the Tournament, let alone beat me."

            Just as expected, the others raised protests and made comments on how he was overselling himself, but Buffy just stared right at him.  After a minute of the noise, Buffy raised her hand and after a minute or two, the others stopped talking and stared at her.

            "Tell you what, let's go back to the Main Gym, I'm sure they've finished repairing it by now, and you will show us _exactly_ why we can't beat you.  Unless you have a problem with that?" Buffy demanded.

            Goku, still smirking, stood to his feet and shook his head, "No, no I don't have a problem with that at all.  Shall we go?"

*                       *                       *

Main Gym 

"No holding back?" Buffy asked for the fifth time.

            "No holding back," Goku agreed for the sixth time, just a trace of annoyance in his voice.

            They were back in the, repaired, Main Gym.  It looked as if their fight of just a few hours previous had never happened, or they were in a different place, but it was the Main Gym.  Nanotechnology was truly a fascinating wonder.

            All of the Slayer Team, and their former Trainer, were present and for the moment just standing in the middle of the Gym, apparently waiting for Goku to work up enough nerve to get rid of the last of his secrets and show Slayer Team his _true_ power level.

            "I'm going to give you a lesson on the basics of the Super Saiyan," Goku told them. "I'll go through it step by step, instead of to my max in one go, okay?  Okay, then."  Goku transformed, the golden glow surrounding him, green eyes, and golden blonde hair.  Slayer Team watched expectantly.  "This is what you fought last time, and at the beginning this time."  The team nodded, no problem here.  Goku powered up some, and said, "This is what you fought at the end today."   The team nodded again.  Then Goku's power suddenly jumped immensely.

            "Whoa," Xander whispered shocked some.  The others nodded in agreement.

            Goku smiled, and said, "This is an intermediate step, Super Saiyan maxed out without going to extreme measures, simply powering up."

            "Extreme measures?" Giles requested dryly.

            Goku grin, with a little strain his power went upward suddenly, enormously upward.  His muscles bulged, until he looked like body builder instead of a sleek fighter.  "This is what some in the past – erroneously if you ask me – have called Super Saiyan stage two," Goku told, the wide-eyed team.

            "Goddess," Willow said looking at the Super Saiyan.

            "At this, most of your attacks would be useless against me," Goku told them.  The he roared, and his power boosted upward even more, and his muscles grew to ridiculous extreme.

            "Damn," Buffy said, looking at the impressive and even fearful sight.

            Goku told them with a little strain even, "This is Super Saiyan stage 3, or Ultra Super Saiyan, something a few called the true Legendary Super Saiyan – which is very false.  My power is immense, but it has a grave weakness, the bulk slows me down considerably, and makes me less maneuverable.  Against an opponent almost equal in power, mostly useless."  Goku let his muscles deflate, his power go down, and he was back at the level before the 'extreme measures'.  "So, my ancestor had to find a solution to that problem – his answer, not raw uncontrolled power, but gentleness, control," Goku explain, and then his power went up and up, the energy blasting past the Slayer Team's, any loose hair whipping about, much like before with the Ultra Super Saiyan.  This time Goku's muscles stayed the same, but there was an intangible quality to it now.  "Super Saiyan, full power," Goku explained calmly, giving them a smile.  "This is Super Saiyan maxed out, power at max, speed and maneuverability maxed out, it's all about careful control, and inner peace. Let me demonstrate."  Goku shot away with incredible speed, shooting left and right across the gym.  The Slayer Team looked astonished, and tried to follow him, but as hard as they tried, they didn't manage much more than a yellow blur.  They would be surprised if untrained humans would see more than an elongated streak.  Then Goku set down again, the Slayer Team looking astonished.

            "Shit," Xander cursed.

            "So this is you all out, huh?" Buffy asked a little subdued, her mind already racing, trying to figure out how to match Goku blow for blow. The Super Saiyan nodded.  "We've got one hell of a long way to go," Buffy muttered shocked.  Willow and Giles nodded in agreement.

            "Good, then you understand," Goku answered, he waited a moment longer, and then his power rose with explosive force.  The Slayer's Team's jaws dropped in shock.  _'Let's do this the long way, give them a show,'_ Goku thought with a smirk, and then brought his arms out, hands balled into fists. He screamed, his power shooting upward with ever increasing speed.

            "Oh, no," an alien in worker's clothes, and with a companion said in a doorway in annoyance.  "We just fixed the place!"  A rumbling slowly started to grow, shield generators sparked, cracks started to form in the walls.

            "We deserve a raise, and statues," his companion said in irritation and awe.  "What do these damn fighters think they can do if they don't have us to fix their training equipment, huh?"

            Goku's power in the mean time was still rising.  His aura slowly became more intense, an occasional bolt of lighting flashed in it.  His muscles changed, they seemed more sleek, hardened, like unbreakable slabs of stone.  And the Slayer Team could only watch, and exert their strength to keep from falling on their asses.  The floor of the gym shook as it tried to cope with the new power, but to no avail.  Goku's hair stood up straighter, the electric bolts came with greater frequency, and then with a final push it was done.  A shockwave of energy was blasted outward from Goku's body as the transformation to next level was complete.  The energy wave pulled the Slayer Team off their feet, and crashed them against the wall – they felt the shield give way then.  The shields indeed could no longer handle the power increase and collapsed.  The once force field-enhanced windows of the gym were blown out, and the shockwave went onward, out of the gym, across the compound.  Windows shattered, air cars and hover equipment stalled, and people immediately looked up in astonishment, shocked.

            "The main gym," a few said, and they, and others quickly went to check up on what was happening.

            Across the Compound, Broly, training with his own team of trainees, suddenly looked up and smirked.  Without hesitation he called a halt to the training and set the coordinates on the MTC for the Main Gym.  He needed all the help he could get in deflating the egos of the super heroine team of protectors.

            Goku stood there, hands balled into fists, and a little outward.  "The Ascended Super Saiyan, or Super Saiyan 2 for short," Goku said his gaze intense.  The Slayer Team looked with shocked faces.  They had scarcely imagined power like this.  Goku's ki flame burned with raw power, pulsing with a dangerous intensity.  The lightning bolts sizzling through it gave the whole spectacle a sense of otherworldly power.   Several groups of people came filing into the gym, Broly and the Senshi Team one of them, and they all looked at Super Saiyan 2 Goku with awe.  "Now to max it out," Goku announced, and his power once again shot upward, energy washing over everyone.  The gym trembled, and cracked, and groaned as Goku's power rose beyond otherworldly levels.

            "Gods almighty," Mina muttered in shock as she had trouble standing with the building seemingly shaking apart.

            Slayer Team was pushing back at the incredible amount of power to keep from getting pushed through the wall.  "Fuck me!" Xander yelled out in shock.  "You wish!" Buffy automatically shouted back, despite being nearly overwhelmed herself.  Willow's lips quivered a little in fear.  Buffy shook her head in disbelief, and Giles muttered something unintelligible.  Above the gym, thunderclouds formed, and lightning flashed down, accompanied by thunder. Hailstones came crashing down upon the ground, the wind picked up into a full-fledged storm.

Finally Goku stopped his power up, and stretched himself out a little, relaxing.  Slayer Team looked at him.  "Fuck, that's . . . I guess we've . . ." Buffy muttered with her mouth mostly agape.  She was stopped by Goku's deepening smirk.

"Now, to ascend beyond the Super Saiyan ascended beyond the Super Saiyan," Goku said, as he bent through his knees, his arms went into a straight angle. "This . . ." with an explosion Goku's power rose even more, to the complete and utter shock and fear of the Slayer Team.  The electric bolts came almost continuously now.  " . . . is Super Saiyan level three," Goku said, and roared out. The floor and ground beneath his feet split open, the cone of energy surrounding him expanded, energy blasted out from him.  His hair started growing longer, his feet sank into the ground, and as the gym start rumbling even more the cracks formed into a star pattern and reached outward, tearing open.

"STOP IT!!" Buffy screamed out in some fear, realizing with a cold shock that Goku could probably kill them all with just energy he was generating from his transformation.  They weren't going to stay dead of course, but that didn't mean it wasn't a singular unpleasant experience.  "WE GET IT!  WE GET YOUR POINT, DAMN IT!  WE CAN'T BEAT YOU!!  STOP IT!!"

Several massively powerful lightning bolts shot from Goku into the sky, tearing apart pieces of the building's roof, revealing the blackened sky overhead.  The building started shaking more, before Giles was the first to realize that it wasn't the building, but the ground itself.  Then with a start, Xander figured the next one and voiced it, screaming in order to be heard, "FUCK!  HE'S MAKING THE WHOLE PLANET SHAKE!"  Giles, Willow, and Buffy looked back at him, shock written on their faces when they noticed he was right.  Outside, through one of the holes in the walls, one of the less sturdy buildings collapsed partially.

"WE GET IT ALREADY, STOOOPP!!" Buffy yelled again.

Suddenly the shaking stopped, the storm overhead calmed down - although it still raged on – and all suddenly became quiet.  Super Saiyan 2 Goku stood in front of them, grinning from ear to ear.

"Bloody bastard," Giles commented for them all.

TBC…

_________________________________________________________________________

AN:      FINALLY!!!!!  IT IS **FINISHED**!!!!!

Now for the cryptic, episodic ending questions that must be on everyone's minds by this point;

Now that Goku's true power has been revealed, what will the Slayer Team be forced to do to catch up with their former Trainer?

What will Buffy decide to tell her mother when they go back home?

Will Giles master the powers of Nightblade in time?

Now that Goku is no longer a full-time Trainer, what will he do?  Will there be anymore bouts between himself and the Slayer Team?

And the ultimate question, will the Slayer Team be ready for the Tournament, or are they going to die in 3 months time?

All this and more, answered in the next chapter; "**The Last Week**"

IF there are any true and depth worthy problems, you can always contact me privately at the.evil.guy@grandt.com and I have never meant to offend or discredit anyone in anyway with anything that I have ever written.  Ever.

All in all, this is meant as enjoyment, for me in writing it, and for you in reading it, and that should be my biggest concern.  Which it is.

So, please enjoy!

;

-- Joshua


	6. The Last Week

AN: Reminder, the updated part, if you don't feel like reading the whole thing, is after the line of dashes (-)

**The Last Week:**

On the eve of their 6th week in the Compound, Buffy awoke from a light slumber and even after her customary sonic shower, stumbled sleepily from her room into the main apartment area, only to see Willow sitting in the exact same place she had seen the studious mage in last night, on the couch, pouring over several mountains worth of very old books and scrolls.

"Willow! Have you been there all night?" the Team Leader exclaimed, concerned and aghast at the feat.

"Of course not Buffy!" Willow immediately replied without looking up from her reading. "About two hours after you went to bed I spent an hour practicing my magic skills and then spent a half hour after that regenerating. I've been like this since then."

Buffy just stared at her best female friend, unable to believe what she had just heard and was seeing. "What part of rest did you not get from the other day's lessons?" she asked harshly.

"What part of student of magic did you not get Buffy!" Willow snapped back, actually looking to glare at the Slayer. "You, Xander, heck, even Giles has it easy compared to me! All you've got to do is learn how to fight, and that's pretty easy to learn! The only thing you have to do is get stronger and faster and better. Strength, speed, skill, that's all that matters to you! But me? Me, I have to learn a whole dribble of meaningless facts that help, or at least give me a hint as to how to control, or at the very least manipulate the energies that I'm harnessing as magic!! You have no concept of how trying, how difficult, how extraordinarily _hard_ it is to become a stronger magic-user, because I can promise you this, it is _NOT_ as easy as becoming stronger, faster, or better!"

Once she was sure the redhead was done for the moment, Buffy coughed slightly and made a vague gesture towards the ceiling. "Uhm… Wills?"

Confused, and still flustered over Buffy's overprotective attitude, Willow looked up and startled. During her tirade, her emotions having already been rather high from the late hours and exposure to magic, her anger must have reacted with that magic because roughly one meter over their heads churned a black thunderhead, completely covering the ceiling from view, occasionally letting off a spark of lightning in it's murky depths.

"Oh! Uh… uh oh…" Willow began to panic slightly until she realized that all of a sudden Buffy was at her side.

"It's all right," she said comfortingly. "So. You do know how to get rid of this right? I mean, yeah, the ceiling was getting kind of boring to look at, and this does add a touch of flavor to the place, but you can get rid of this right?"

Buffy's babbling, whether she meant it to or not, helped Willow center her own calm. Now sure of herself and the panic strictly under control, the Powermage nodded confidently and exerted the necessary energies, while waving her hand for effect. The black thunderclouds dispersed immediately.

"Cool," Buffy replied, relief pouring from her.

"Sorry. I'm still working on my fine-control. It's coming along rather slowly. Slower than I'd like to tell you the truth," Willow admitted.

"But it is coming along, right?" Buffy asked, a hint of pride in her tone.

Willow smiled, grateful for such a wonderful friend. She nodded, "Yeah, it's coming along. Just… slowly."

"Better than not at all," Buffy clapped the girl on her knees before getting to her feet and walking over to the Bar to get some breakfast. After the last training session with Goku, the Technicians, or whoever was in charge of it, had finally turned off the alarm for the Slayer Team and allowed them full access to the bar, no limits on time or menus.

"Well that's true," Willow had to admit as she went back to her reading.

"You are going to eat something, right?" Buffy asked around her bit of toast, staring at the back of her friend's head.

"Yeah, sure," Willow answered distractedly.

Buffy squinted her eyes in suspicion.

At that moment Xander came from his own room and stretched languidly as he followed Buffy's example and ambled over to the Bar. "Has she been there all night?" he asked after getting his own meal. Much to almost everyone's surprise, Xander had seriously bulked up over the past weeks, making him just as attractive, or more so, than any jock the state of California had to offer.

"Pretty much," Buffy nodded, secretly eyeing Xander's butt when he wasn't looking. Barely containing the wolf whistle on her lips, she instead bit down hard on her last piece of toast.

"Should I talk with her?" he asked his Alpha. Xander had successfully suppressed, or at the least integrated all of the Hyena's worst instincts so that they no longer controlled him, but rather helped him out whenever he needed them. Some though, still made a nuisance of themselves. Like sometimes thinking of Buffy as his Alpha.

Buffy gave him a sideways glare, but returned her gaze back to Willow. "Only if you want to see what it's like to get struck by a lightning bolt or two."

"Stressed out?"

"Oh yeah."

"Gotcha."

"So what's on you're agenda for today Buff?" Xander asked as they sat back down to eat.

Buffy finished the orange juice she was drinking before answering her teammate. "I'm not really sure. Thought I might swing by Second Training for another try at the Tank. After that, I'll more than likely spend my time in the Main Gym until lunch. Why? What about you?"

"Master Fong," Xander said as way of explanation. "After that… See you at lunch?"

"Sure," Buffy answered. "And hey, if Fong isn't going to hog you for the whole day, how about we head to the private gym and go a few rounds?"

"Sounds great. I'm there!"

At that moment Giles came out of his own room, going straight for the bar like the others, but he did pause for a moment when he saw Willow at the couch, the mountain of books, if anything having actually gotten larger since Buffy first woke up.

"Has she been there all night?" he asked as he took his own place at the bar.

Buffy and Xander nodded, adding, "Yep."

"Shouldn't one of us…"

"No," they both answered together, shaking their heads.

"But…"

"No!"

"Well…"

"Three words G-man," Xander clapped the Watcher on the shoulder, "Light bulb. Your head."

"I understand, never mind that I said anything," Giles immediately turned back to his tea and breakfast.

_Moveable Mess_

Later that afternoon 

Buffy landed gracefully on the patio of the large hover barge, which was the most popular place to eat in the entire Compound. Not often did the Slayer Team, at least since Xander started training with Master Fong, did they eat or even visit the floating kitchen. Buffy's excuse was always that she was too busy training.

A quick look around the rowdy joint told her that she was here first, before Xander at any rate. Having nothing better to do for the moment, she took the roundabout way of getting to the ordering line, walking by the chart on the "sponsored" arm wrestling matches, and was surprised that she was still in the top slot. What surprised her just as much was that Xander was in the third slot; third place.

Getting in line, she quickly picked up her menu PADD and chose a table that was semi-isolated, or at the very least had no people sitting there. Going through the options, Buffy picked a couple of her favorite side dishes, and then just for the heck of it, picked an alien dish for her main course. Thankfully her implant provided translations so she did know what she was getting.

One of the robot servers eventually came by and picked up her PADD and she gave it her order. Within a few minutes, she had her meal before her. Just before she could begin to eat it however, Xander came up behind her and said, while poking her in the back, "Hey Buff, mind if I join ya?"

Startled, Buffy screamed, and let her energy flare as her instinct told her she was being attacked. An energy blast flew from both her hands and exploded on the far wall, creating a very impressive, and charred hole. A few flashes of gold light indicated immortals being reborn by the Powers, and everybody stared at the Slayer.

"God Xander!" Buffy shouted, after making sure that she hadn't caused permanent damage to anything, (the hole in the wall was already regenerating with help from the repair nanoprobes) "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Sorry!" Xander made to defend himself as he sat down, sounding truly apologetic at the same time. "Didn't mean to startle you, I just happened to be coming from the angle which was not in your direct line of sight and then spoke in a normal tone of voice while giving you a very light, non-threatening touch to the middle of your back. Oh, yeah, gee, I'm sorry Buff, how careless of me. Everything I did indicates that I was part of a devious plot designed to startle you."

The sarcasm was not lost on Buffy.

"Seriously though," Xander switched from goof to concerned in the space of a heartbeat, "what's got you so tense? Usually, you're pretty relaxed after you come back from Second Training. Taking a dip in the pool does that I guess."

Buffy frowned and began to eat, without looking at her friend or really answering him at all. Xander recognized this behavior, having gotten to know it, and Buffy over the past few weeks much better than he had in all the time before. He allowed her the time to gather her thoughts, but after he had already placed his own order, and she was half done with her first dish, he decided that was enough waiting.

"Buffy, what is it?"

Her fork paused halfway to her mouth, hesitated, and then settled back on the plate. Slowly, she looked up and met the Warrior's eyes. "It's almost time to go back Xander," she told him straightforward, sounding none too pleased about the fact.

Xander appeared stunned by it though.

"Wh-what? Really? I mean… gosh… has it already been…? Gosh. I… I don't know… Oh boy, wow. Uh… so… are, well, uh, well okay then. I guess… well, I guess we'll just have to make the next few days count for something, huh?" Xander nervously stuttered.

Buffy shook her head and looked back down at her food.

"I don't think we're ready," she confided in him.

He frowned in confusion. "For what? Going back home?"

She shook her head again, "No. For the Tournament. Three months after we get back home… we're going to be fighting our first fight, our first _real_ fight in the Tournament. The _Tournament_ Xander! I… I just don't think we're ready."

"Oh," Xander turned his own eyes downcast.

_000_

"Are you sure about this? I mean, are you _really_ sure about this? Have you thought it completely, and thoroughly through? Have you considered the consequences? Not only to yourself, but to everyone else?"

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, and…well… mostly yes, and kinda no on some parts. I'm blocking out whatever my parents would say when they find out. And I have no illusions about them finding out either," Willow answered dutifully.

Marduk sighed and nodded his agreement, which brought forth a wide and bright smile from Willow's face.

"We'll do it tonight," he verbally agreed. He turned to go, but hesitated at the last second and added, "And you will be sure to make all the preparations, I'm sure?"

"Of course," Willow answered reverently.

"Very well then. Until tonight," and with that Marduk disappeared.

Once he was gone, Willow's composure crumbled and she wailed in her mind, '_What am I gonna tell Buffy?'_

_000_

"Wait, what do you mean a study session?" Buffy interrupted Willow's nervous babbling, which everyone had begun to think was history given the spell caster's new level of power and confidence.

"Well, it's not exactly a study session, but rather something deeply involving things and aspects of… of my power or powers that I've been studying, and…" Willow stopped, gathered her thoughts and took a deep breath all at once. "The main point is, I'm going to be spending the night and the rest of the day away from the apartment, and I will be with Marduk. Ideally I'll see all of you tomorrow afternoon at the earliest."

Buffy, Giles, and Xander just stared at their teammate, dumbfounded for several seconds. Finally, Xander asked, "Uh… OK. Care to tell us what exactly this thing you've been studying is?"

Frowning, Willow hesitated for many seconds, thinking things over in her mind, putting her entire brainpower behind the question posed before her. "I… do not want to tell you," she said carefully.

Confused glances passed around between the other Slayerettes. "Why not?" Buffy asked.

Willow smiled and replied instantly, "I want to surprise you."

Several more glances were exchanged between the other three, before finally Buffy just shrugged and said, "OK, fine. See you tomorrow afternoon." Just like that.

Willow blinked in surprise, and even Giles and Xander were doing double takes.

"Really? It… it's fine?" Willow asked, sounding as surprised as she looked.

Buffy nodded.

"Well, OK then. Um, I'll see you guys tomorrow," she waved, smiling brightly, before turning and disappearing in her teleport signature. (A flash of green light similar to Q from Star Trek TNG)

Giles and Xander then walked around and faced Buffy, crossing their arms, confusion quite clear on their faces. "OK, who are you, and what have you done with Slayer?" Xander demanded to know.

Buffy smiled slightly, but just shrugged again and calmly answered, "I'm not her boss. She can do what she likes, and if she wants to do some kind of magic experiment or whatever, that's fine by me. That's up to her. What matters is that she told us about it in advance and warned us that she would be absent for a night and a day. That way, none of us are worried about her."

Giles had to concede the logic on that, but Xander was not about to let the problem escape so easily.

"But she's going to miss tonight's training session, as well as tomorrow morning's with Goku and Broly in the Main Gym. The Slayer that has lived in this apartment for the last 5 or so weeks would not let any of us, especially _Willow_, the physically weakest member of this team "slack off" to do whatever she wants. Especially since that Slayer just this morning confided in me that we don't really have a chance at winning the Tournament."

Buffy just stared at her friend. Then she turned around and walked to her room. Just before she opened the door, facing the wall, she told both of them, "That Slayer won't win the Tournament. And neither will the Warrior X you're trying to be Xander, or the perfect partner for that sentient sword of yours Giles." She turned and faced them, "Buffy, Xander, Giles, and Willow are going to win it. We can't stop being who and what we are just because it _might_ increase our chances at survival."

"Don't worry, we'll find a way. But until then… just try to remember who we are, so we don't forget when we go back," she added before entering her room, leaving the men to contemplate her words.

_000_

The next morning, Buffy found herself waking on the couch in the living room. Startled, and wondering why she was not in her bed, she sat up and looked around. Then she remembered, coming back from their nightly training session, and she decided, impulsively, to wait up for Willow, even though she consciously knew that her redheaded friend wouldn't be back until this afternoon some time.

She didn't know why she had waited, and as she stood up to work out the kinks in her back, she wondered what had possessed her to sleep on the couch anyway. In the mean time, she needed a shower, breakfast, and then she had to start her day. It was in the middle of her sonic shower that she remembered the scheduled training session with Broly and Goku in the Main Gym. Looking at the time, she knew she'd be early, but what the heck, she could get in a few extra rounds against the demons the Gym's computer could come up with until Broly and Goku got there. Same for Xander and Giles if they chose to come.

Grabbing a quick cup of coffee, to go, from the Bar, Buffy quickly made her way to the MTC and set the coordinates for the Main Gym. Surprisingly, the moment she stepped out of the glowing red portal, other than her there was not a single living soul in the massive training environment.

That is, until the computer recognized her, scanned her fighting potential, and used it's holographic interfacing imaging systems to create a life size Kortoth demon. A large, eight-foot tall demon with blackened scaled skin, lava-glowing eyes, and sharp horns, tusks, and even arm and knee spikes as well as a bladed tale. It growled out nonsense in what should have been the demon's native language, although it sounded more like the roar from the T-Rex in Jurassic Park to Buffy's human ears.

The Slayer smiled, then cracked both her knuckles and rolled her head around, loosening up a couple muscle groups, before taking the steps forward to begin her workout.

_000_

By the time Goku and Broly got to the Main Gym, Buffy was in the thick of it, up to her knees. Literally, there were demon parts strewn all over the gym, and around Buffy they measured up to just past her knees. And yet still more demons, not just Kortoths, but giant demon snakes, and then there were these vampire-like things, only they had really big heads, talons instead of hands, and no hair, save for what came out of their pointed ears. When Buffy asked later, Giles rather blandly told her they were Turokahn, an ancient breed of vampire. The closest that there was of the _first_ vampire.

Those, Buffy just casually ripped the heads off of or blasted them away with a Slayer Strike.

When Goku and Broly entered the gym, Giles and Xander right on their heels, the men all just stared for several long minutes while Buffy kept up her workout, although she still looked pretty fresh.

"Uh, Buffy!" Goku called out, distracting the Slayer just as one of the bigger and nastier demons the computer had created attacked her from her blindside. Growling to herself, Buffy glared at the demon, and then with a primal roar she powered up to her maximum, the golden ki flame exploding around her, blowing away all of the demon parts and almost vaporizing as well as blowing away the still standing demons.

In the aftermath, the computer just conceded defeat and made all of the . . . all that remained of the opponents, disappear. Buffy stood there, ki flame waving gently in its own breeze, her hair blowing wildly in the wash of her energy. Then she glared with a foul grimace in Goku's direction, and in the blink of an eye, she flashed to directly in front of him and told him, "Please don't do that again. Power up or let me know you're there before just talking like that. Good as I am, I'm not as fundamentally aware of your presence all of the time. Now, are we ready to get started?"

"You mean you haven't already?" Broly asked with a teasing grin, running his hand back through his purple hair to keep it out of his eyes.

Buffy just grinned at him and started walking back out to the middle of the chamber.

_000_

Much later, Buffy, Xander, and Giles all limped out of the Gym, while both Broly and Goku went out rubbing sore muscles, and not sore from muscle strain. The demi-Saiyans weren't injured enough to even considering going to the Clinic, while Giles left for the private Gym saying Nightblade was talking about this being a perfect time to learn some healing techniques the Blade needed to teach its bearer. Xander didn't really have a choice as Master Fong immediately summoned him from the Main Gym and Xander was forced to go on to the Chi Temple for more training. So, Buffy, alone, went on to the Clinic to get patched up from their training with the Super Saiyans.

After their initial encounter with Clinic procedure (Do what the nurses indicate for you to do or be knocked unconscious and have it be done anyway) the Slayer Team had gained a great deal more experience in how to get the proper treatment they were seeking. And even though Slayer's own etiquette lacked the refinement the "Doctors", if such creatures could actually be called that given their extreme lack of humanity, required of most of their patients, they still treated her and the Team.

The Doctors were all of one race, not found anywhere else in the Compound, or so the Slayer Team had been told, and treated everything that they encountered, even each other, like machines. Machines with no feelings, no emotions, and despite having expressions of and actually feeling it, no pain.

And the remark about no humanity, applies mostly to their bedside manner. Their loyalty to the Compound and their jobs have never been questioned, not even by the Slayer Team. It's just that after spending nearly a month and a half here in this alien environment, the humans chosen by the Powers had discovered, met, and even befriended hundreds of different species that were as "human" as anybody from their homeworld. Some were even better than several "true" humans they all knew back home.

And then they meet the aliens running and in charge of the Clinic. Sometimes it was easy to forget in a place like the Compound exactly _where_ they were.

After a bout of intense massage therapy, Slayer got up and headed to the main walkway of the Compound, the usual way they took to get to the Moveable Mess. Only this time, feeling more pain in places she _really_ didn't want to think about, she decided to just take a stroll along the way.

In all the time she and her friends had lived here, and it was _lived_, she had always been training, recuperating, or hanging out with her friends and doing one of the other things. She never just . . . walked along and enjoyed all the wondrous and amazing things about this place.

For one thing, the level of technology and architecture was decades, if not centuries beyond anything this 20th Century girl knew and was familiar with. And while the sky was most often a murky gray, sometimes, like today, patches of an iridescent blue filtered through the cloud cover.

A couple hours later, during which Buffy had even taken a walk through the arboretum, finally having done so after saying she had so many times, Buffy took an MTC to the Second Training facility, and registered herself for some underwater level exercises.

As she walked along to the lower levels of the Upper Half, dodging her way around the cluttered floor of testing and training equipment, she found herself caught by one of the first creatures she had ever met at the Compound.

"Well hey there Slayer! Long time no see!" one of the technicians called out as she passed.

Stopping, she turned and looked to see who had addressed her. She smiled as she remembered the short dolphin-manlike creature that had inducted the Slayer Team into their Second Training. "Hi! Chad, right?" she asked, trying not to sound too unsure.

"Chedwindallawhee! actually," he said, but grinned all the same. "I see you've developed that gift you've got about surviving. I heard about the Test. Congratulations."

Buffy grinned back. She didn't have to ask what the 'Test' was, she knew that was what most of the people were calling the training session where she had actually managed to knock out Goku, one of the greatest fighters in the Compound.

"Thanks. Hey, it was nice seeing you again, but I've got to get going. I booked some time in the Lower Half," she said as she started to walk away.

But Chad dropped what he had been doing and started walking after her, "Well here, let me escort you. Least I can do with the leader of one of the most promising Teams to come out of the Compound in a good long while."

"I do know the way. The Mariner gave me the full tour when he started to supervise my training," Buffy started to say, but stopped speaking when Chad looked up at her in shock.

"First Goku and then the Mariner?! The Powers must really have blessed you for you to receive such attention. I'm sure you've heard . . ." Chad started to say.

Buffy nodded, interrupting him, "Yeah, I've heard a lot of the stories. And then I've heard the facts from both men's mouths. Very rarely is hearsay and rumors ever truly accurate enough compared to the truth. Anyway, the Mariner graduated me the other day, and now I'm just getting in some practice time. I may have my ki and greater lung capacity, but he can still swim circles around me. I'm just hoping, with practice, I can get half as good as he is in the water."

"That would be a miracle indeed," Chad agreed as they took the lift from the main, Third level of the Top Half down to the Second level. The First Level, directly beneath them, was entirely submerged and was basically just a really big airlock and decompression chamber, and connected directly to the Lower Half, which was just as tall and deep as the Top Half, except that it was entirely filled with water. It had taken 4 weeks of time at the Compound before the Mariner had finally taken Buffy into the Lower Half. After a week of doing nothing but training in the Lower Half with the mutant, he had finally graduated her.

Half an hour after her chat with Chad, Buffy had worked her way through the airlock and past the fully submerged level into the upper parts of the Lower Half. The Obstacle Course.

Suffice it to say, the Obstacle Course was exactly that, except underwater and made for underwater exercises, and only covered the top 1/6th of the depth of the Lower Half. Bars meant for swimming around, holes meant to be swam through, walls meant to be swam around, and even a maze near the bottom part of the Course, an underwater maze, but still just as harrowing and dangerous as any maze in the Compound. Buffy's 'graduation' was preceded by her running every obstacle and passing through the maze, going down another mile in the water, and then all the way back up to the beginning, running through all the obstacles a second time, in a certain time limit. Her current record is 3 hours and 47 minutes and 19 seconds.

This time though, as she swam as quickly as she could through every obstacle, around every pole and bar, through every hole, around every wall, and going to every corner of the maze before going to the end she knew so well, her goal wasn't timing, but physical limit.

An hour and twenty minutes from starting the Obstacle Course, the fastest she had made it through the first round yet, she hovered over the inky blackness of the bottom 5/6ths of the Lower Half for a few seconds. Because of lighting, and the material actually glowing, the Obstacle Course was well lit, same as any Olympic or other kind of swimming pool back home. But from here on down, it would be more like the true depths of the ocean.

Pitch black, unable to see even your own body unless you brought your own light source, cold enough to freeze anything with a higher freezing temperature than water, and enough pressure to crush many known types of metal canisters. Even the hardest and densest material, the same metal her sword was made out of, would be crushed at the bottom most depth of the Second Training Lower Half.

Therefore, only the strongest ki warriors, with the ability to push back the pressure with their own energy, had ever made it to the bottom. Buffy, before she returned home, wanted to be one of those warriors.

Hovering just below the end of the maze, she stared straight down, unable to see anything, even with her Slayer enhanced eyes, almost as good as cats as far as seeing in the dark went, and she even had her ki flame ignited around her. Not to keep the water out, not that she would waste her energy on that without first learning how to convert some of it into oxygen for her to breathe. She only had it burning around her to enhance her muscles, and also to provide precious illumination to her light-starved eyes.

She still couldn't see anything beneath her.

Taking a metaphorical breath, since she was holding it, Buffy clenched her body, and exerted her energy just enough to ensure that her muscles wouldn't freeze on the way down, and then with another exertion of her energy, she shot down into the murky depths. From this point on, it wasn't a matter of lungpower, but energy control and strength, so using it to propel her to the bottom instead of just her legs wouldn't be considered cheating in the slightest.

Despite the heat provided by her own light and energy, she felt the overwhelming chill all around her. It was kinda scary, but kept her focused, through fear, on her goal.

Some can always keep track of time, no matter where they are or what they are doing, you ask them and they'll tell you exactly what time it is and however long it's been that they've been doing something, they'll know that too.

Buffy is not one of those people.

What was actually twenty seconds of her blasting down into the dark depths of the Lower Half, felt to her like more than two hours. With only the light around her body and only her own body to feel or mark the passage of distance, which was completely impossible since she couldn't see the edges of the tank, which actually were marked with the depth, and all she felt from the water was cold, not even a current, she couldn't tell how far she'd gone, or how long she had been going.

Finally she just thought of the obvious; start counting and then deduce the amount of time from the number she got to. By the time she got to 300, she had already gone one mile of the depth of the Lower Half. By the time that she got to 1,200 she began to get a little worried because she had been going as fast as she could, straight down . . . at least . . . she thought it was straight down. It was beginning to get hard to tell, and by her count, 20 minutes, she should have gone far enough to be almost halfway to the very bottom, but she still didn't feel any extra pressure. Her energy seemed to be more than strong enough to keep her from being crushed by whatever depth she really was at.

Doubt creeping into her thoughts, she slowed down a bit, and almost, but not actually, stopped. She mostly just stopped exerting her energy and let gravity and momentum, of what she could feel of it, continue to pull her down.

Meanwhile she tried to remember whatever trivia she had learned about the Compound, hoping to remember the exact height, aka depth, of the entire Second Training Tower, since the Top Half and the Lower Half were exactly the same size in all dimensions, if she could just remember . . .

Buffy suddenly convulsed, but not because of lack of oxygen, but she finally felt the pressure begin to affect her. Her ears were pounding and her skull felt like it was about to implode. This had the unfortunate side effect of making the Slayer very and suddenly angry.

With a silent explosion that was only heard at the surface of the water in the bottom of the Top Half, the Slayer's body let out a wave of energy that for a moment actually did light up everything around her. Even the walls of the tank, which showed a big 3.4 with the letters 'm.i.' beside them. There were other numbers, some for alien races, quite a few for human languages, but that was the one she noticed first.

'_3.4 miles,'_ she thought to herself. '_I don't even know what crush depth is for a human but I've obviously passed it if my ears have anything to say about it. Time to power back up.'_ She decided and did just that. Instantly all of the pressure side effects she had been feeling went away like they had never been there in the first place. With another thought, she was speeding back down to the bottom at top speed once more.

She started counting over again, and this time when she got to 1,200, she didn't so much as pause and kept going. However, after having not seen or felt anything since her temper tantrum by the time she got to 6,000, by her count almost an hour, she began to get worried again, and wondered once more just how deep this went.

She _was_ running low on air, this alone having been the longest she ever held it before, but she had never been allowed to go to her full power before either, and she was also taking the extra precaution, had been ever since before she entered the water, of infusing her energy in her blood with the oxygen, making it last longer. However she was also starting to get lightheaded and that meant she was only a half hour at most away from the delirium she had been told she went into when oxygen deprived.

So it was a really big surprise for the Slayer when all of a sudden, she felt something hit her nose and face very painfully.

It surprised the hell out of her, but no air. The Mariner had been extremely strict ever since that day Willow had surprised her during Second Training, and had almost completely ridden Buffy of the nasty bad habit of gasping for air when surprised.

She stopped herself and backed up some, holding herself still while she rubbed away the pain. She felt the tenderness around her nose for a bit, but apparently it hadn't broken, thankfully, and she exerted a little more energy to provide some light so she could see exactly what hit her.

If she was surprised when she hit it, that was nothing compared to when she saw a smooth, completely black surface directly in front of her face, and reflecting her own light. Worried that this might be either another swimmer, or worse some kind of trick, Buffy looked all the way around her, in every direction possible.

She froze stiff when she saw the glass wall not ten feet straight out from her.

Her eyes went wide and she double-checked herself, making sure she didn't feel any ailments or that her ears weren't bleeding or something else like that. And as near as she could tell, she was just fine. And on the bottom of the Lower Half.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_000_

As much as Xander just wanted to drop dead in a corner somewhere after the training session with Goku and Broly, he immediately got a request to join Master Fong at the Temple. There was only one thing wrong with that, Xander knew.

Master Fong didn't give out "requests".

With a sigh, Xander programmed the MTC accordingly and quickly navigated the labyrinth of the Temple of Chi Magicks, and found himself back at the 'garden area' where Master Fong had once taken the entire Team when Buffy had requested of him to train them in the same Chi techniques he was teaching Xander.

"You are LATE!" Master Fong screamed at him the moment he stepped into the training room, straight out of an old Kung Fu movie.

"Yeah, I got here as fast as I could, what did you need?" Xander asked, finally having figured out what the deal was with the crotchety old Chi Wizard. He _liked_ being crotchety.

"Your chi and spirit energy have finally developed enough to be taught three of the most basic chi attacks any Chi Warrior can use. Every Chi Warrior can use spirit energy. It is their weapon in battle. One more thing, demons use spirit energy to develop terrible attack techniques, much like Ki-users develop their own techniques. Humans can do many more things than just attack with spirit energy. But they can use it to attack as well." Master Fong lectured, pacing back and forth.

"One more thing. The three most basic attacks are the Spirit Gun, and variations, the Spirit Wave, and variations, and the Spirit Aura. The Spirit Aura has no variations, it is meant to supercharge ones body to inhumanly superhuman proportions! One more thing, the Spirit Aura drains more chi and spirit energy than the others and their variations combined! One more thing! Spirit Aura increases the power of one's muscles, so in a fight to increase power you must learn how to increment your energy. If you do not, you will not be able to increase your power! One more thing!"

"This is a forbidden technique?" Xander guessed.

Master Fong rapped him once on the forehead. "DON'T INTERRUPT!"

"Now, first, the Spirit Gun! Bring forth all of your chi, NOW! Then focus all of it to one point at the end of your fingertip! Hold up your hand!!" Master Fong continued to drill Xander as he focused his Spirit energy, as Master Fong had been drilling him in _that_ for weeks beforehand, and began to direct it to the point Master Fong directed him to at the end of his right pointer finger. Strangely, it began to feel pleasantly warm, and then warmer still until he would actually call it hot.

"NOW!" Master Fong yelled, almost directly into his ear, "Imagine the trigger in your mind! Aim your finger at that big rock! Then FIRE!"

Xander did exactly that, having long ago learned not to hesitate or ask questions when Master Fong was in this frame of mind. As he watched, and aimed his finger at a big rock, about six feet tall that had been set up in the corner of the room, a faint red glow began to form at the tip of his finger, until he 'fired' that is. A bright multi-colored, but mostly reddish light suddenly shot out from his fingertip, right at the big rock, leaving a faint rainbow trail, until it hit the big rock, and there was a blinding explosion which actually rocked the floor, a smoke cloud filling the room following the explosion.

"OK, what was that?" Xander asked, coughing until the smoke cleared enough for visibility. Now he knew why Willow had shielded them that first day Goku had been demonstrating.

"The Spirit Gun technique," Master Fong answered matter-of-factly. Then he hit Xander on the head with his bony finger, and shouted, "PAY ATTENTION…!

Grumbling to himself, Xander sighed and did pay attention as Master Fong immediately went into the Spirit Wave technique involving using his entire hand instead of just a finger, which took Xander almost ten tries to do it even once, and a lot more practice before Master Fong said he did it properly, producing a similar explosion as the Spirit Gun had.

Then Master Fong started to explain the Spirit Aura technique. But, fortunately for Xander, he did not demand an instant demonstration from the young warrior. Instead, he went back and began instructing Xander how to do the numerous variations of the first two techniques, including the Shot Gun, the Shield, the 5 Finger Spread, the 360 Aura Blast, the Semi-Automatic (Xander's nickname for what Master Fong called the Triple Shot), the 1080 Aura Blast, the Full-Automatic (Hyper Bullet Spread), and the Force Spirit Wave. Each more difficult, and requiring more energy than the last to even perform once, but Master Fong wouldn't quit until Xander had done each _perfectly_, so by the time it was finally over, Xander was so pooped it wasn't even funny.

Breathing hard, and sweating like he'd just gone fifty rounds with Buffy, Goku _and_ Broly, Xander stood before the ever calm and perfectly poised Master Fong in the center of the now-ruined training room, thanks to all of Xander's "practicing".

"I have one last thing to teach you, before you may retreat to your rest," Master Fong told him in a tone that was rather different for the Chi Wizard.

"The Spirit Aura," Xander guessed between gasping breaths.

Master Fong nodded. _Now_ Xander paid attention, seeing as the old Chinese man hadn't rapped him on the head for interrupting like he usually did.

"Each person has their limits, and I do not need my chi-detector to see that you are near the end of yours. But in order to properly do the Spirit Aura technique, one must go beyond their limits, otherwise they _will_ die when they attempt to perform it. After today, _if_ you successfully manage this, you will discover that the other chi attacks I have taught you today and that you already know will become even more limited than they are by your level of strength. This will be a severe and constant drain on your chi, but if you can do it properly, you will never be in danger of losing your life . . . unless you lose the fight."

"Of course," Xander agreed.

Again, Master Fong didn't hit him for his comment, driving home to Xander _exactly_ how serious this was.

"I am ready Master," he switched gears, bowing to show respect and his willingness to go along with it. With monumental effort, he also controlled his breathing so it appeared he was breathing normally now.

Master Fong nodded once again, turning away, a faint tear in his eye as he whispered, "I know."

_000_

In the Slayer Team's Private Gym, Giles was meditating. Again.

:_You have grown much in your time here. Far more than many of your race ever accomplish. There, however, remains the fact that you can only harness and control only 15 of my power._:

Nightblade was speaking to Giles, as always, directly into his mind as he meditated there, but for once, the Blade of Power was not tutoring the Watcher in how to delve into his own mind and control his autonomic functions, or even on how to control temper and breathing control. For once, for the first time, Giles was meditating on his own and looking to find out his own limits. Without Nightblade's tutoring.

I am fully aware of what I have done. And I am aware of my limitations. That is why I'm trying to find out how much further I have to go. Giles communicated back to his weapon.

Nightblade just let out its version of a sigh.

:_There is still much that I have to teach you about how to use me. But those lessons must wait for you to reach the proper level of strength and skill before I can even reveal what those are to you. So this . . . _:

Is pointless, yes, you've said so already. This isn't about be having a magic sword. This is about how much stronger I can make myself. Buffy is right. We need to buckle down hard in these last few days. If we cannot beat Goku and _win_ before we are returned to Earth . . . we'll have no chance in the Tournament. Giles sent back.

:_Goku is one of the strongest fighters for the Compound _in _the Tournament. If you could beat him at all, there is absolutely no one in the Tournament you'll be fighting that you can't utterly destroy._:

Giles paused in his meditating, turning another fraction of his attention to the mental presence the living weapon was inside his mind. Exactly he replied with the mental equivalent of an evil grin.

Nightblade spent all of one instant of a microsecond thinking that over before he came to a decision.

:_Then it is time to show you the levels of combat magic I can perform._: Nightblade announced, as he tended to do when teaching the Watcher another lesson in its use.

Giles' eyes snapped open, his mind snapping back to full consciousness as he repeated, aloud, "_Combat_ magic?"

:_Of course. What? Did you honestly think that I _only _was about making my bearer a perfect warrior that can use his life force and body and mind as pure weapons, enhanced through my own power? I can enhance your own magical abilities as well. I also have my own magic. And not the pure science that your Willow is studying, or the parlor tricks that combat mages in your world use. One might think of it as one of the stronger and more impressive martial arts of combat magic._:

Where do we begin? Giles immediately asked, getting to his feet.

_000_

Buffy just stood there for a minute, her ki flame still surrounding her, and her body in perfect control. Not crushed, or going into fits, or even being overly aggressive, as she had been told that's what she got like whenever she was oxygen deprived. There was a bit of a pressure, she could feel it, and the cold of the water, on her skin, but that was it. 100 Gs of her morning workout was harder.

Looking around, Buffy found that there really wasn't much down here. Until she saw something in the short distance, which looked kind of like a reflection of candle light. Seeing nothing else but black, she started walking towards it.

Walking was just like trying to walk in a pool, but for some reason easier than walking in a pool had been for her before. She guessed it was because of her heavy G-training. Though compared to the heavy all-encompassing pressure and resistance of her gravity training, it was actually a little bit more difficult.

Gravity just pressed down on you and pulled you to the strongest center of gravity. The water, in it's 10 mile depth pressure, was pretty much ebb and flow, but mostly flow. Half the time, when she expected her foot to hit the floor on her next step, she would find that the currents from her own motions kept her free-floating for a bit.

Finally she got close enough that she saw that the candle light was a lot more, and a bit bigger than just a candle. And it was moving towards her as she moved towards it.

'_A mirror? Down here?'_ she thought to herself.

Not feeling an urgent need to get back to the surface at this exact second, and curious about it, Buffy kept walking towards the light. Corny as that sounds.

As she continued on though, she began to notice more of a soft glow around the light. Like there was more light around it, or just beyond it, but not as bright or intense, so it was more like a glow in the black water rather than whatever it was.

Maybe five minutes from landing on the Bottom, Buffy finally came close enough to see what she had been looking for. And it was her own reflection, of her ki flame at least, but it wasn't a mirror.

'_The entire Lower Half is surrounded by a _glass wall_?!!!'_ Buffy stared up as far as her eyes could see through the immense glass wall, which, thanks to no lighting on the inside, was only able to be identified and seen through when you were a few meters away from it. On the other side, as far as she could tell, was a normal street of the Compound, whatever was on the outside of the Second Training Facility.

'_No way is anybody going to believe me about this,'_ Buffy thought as she ran her hand over the inside of the glass. It felt like glass, underwater, but there was nothing special about it, until she realized exactly how thick this thing had to be to hold as much water as it did.

Oh I don't know. I believe it. 

Buffy turned, and charged a little bit more of her power, her ki flame shining bright gold.

Not willing to waste the air, or the uselessness of it, the Slayer kept her mouth shut and just thought as loud as she could, '_Who's there!!'_

In response Buffy felt an energy spike and almost directly above her, there was a flash of light. She thought it had a green tinge to it, but after so long in black on black water with only her own energy as a light source, it was difficult to tell.

Soon, quicker than she expected, the source of the energy spike approached her position, forcing her into a defensive fighting position until her eyes finally made out the figure in the dim lighting provided only by the bright gold, and bright _green_ ki flames.

For a moment, as the green-covered redhead settled on the floor with her, Buffy remained frozen to the spot. Then she began to try and shout at her friend, recalling just in time _where_ they both were and how talking on any level would be a bad idea. So instead, she just crossed her arms and glared at her best friend and Teammate.

Willow quickly, and easily identified Buffy's mood, and smiled gently to placate her for a moment. Then she tapped her temple and smiled brighter. Holding out her other hand, a bright globe or yellow/orange light began to form above her palm before shooting over to Buffy and striking the Slayer right on the forehead.

Surprised, she almost shouted in outrage, until she suddenly realized that she could hear Willow. But not as though she were speaking, she was hearing Willow's thoughts!

Sorry Willow thought to her in what she realized was some kind of magical telepathy. I didn't mean to scare you like that, honest! I went back to the Apartment first, but no one was there, so I asked around and found out that you were here, and I needed to get my own sort of graduation in Second Training, so I thought I'd join you down here. 

Trying it out, Buffy realized she could separate the thoughts she 'sent' to Willow, and those that were her own private thoughts. Similar in many ways to choosing to speak and keeping your mouth shut.

Willow? What's going on? How did you do this? Did you teleport down here?! 

Willow seemed to giggle suddenly, but Buffy doubted she actually did, seeing no air bubbles escape her.

Well, in the reverse order, no, I didn't teleport. I followed you, going as fast as I could, using a water-flow spell that made me move even faster through the water. I only just caught up with you. As for how I did the telepathy spell, rather simply. It's actually one of the spells Amana taught me, I've just never needed to do it before. And before . . . I didn't have the power to maintain it longer than a few minutes. 

And now you do? Buffy asked.

Willow nodded.

That's . . . kind of what last night was about. Buffy . . . I have a new code name. 

The blonde narrowed her eyes in suspicion and just kept her arms crossed and waited.

I'm now . . . the Wiccan. 

_The_ Wiccan? Buffy asked with all the emphasis she could put into the words.

Again, the Power Mage nodded, because that's exactly what she was now, in addition to having the title Wiccan. Currently there aren't any other _Wiccans_ around. The last Wiccan, Goku told us about, and she actually taught _Marduk_! Marduk is a god Buffy. A Babylonian god on our world. So that's been a long time if you actually think about it. Willow explained.

Buffy would have sighed if she could have afforded to. So she just settled for fidgeting in the water and wringing her hands a little.

So what else does this mean? No, what _all_ does this mean Willow? she demanded.

Willow nodded and then seemed to hesitate and communicated, Can we continue this on the surface. I'm sure you must be running low on air, cause I know I am, and certainly will be by the time we get back to the Top Half. And only if one of us passes out on the way am I going to risk teleporting out of here. I'm not so certain on whether or not I'll take a bunch of water with us. 

All right. But first take off this telepathy thing. I don't want to get distracted. Going up is a lot harder than going down. 

The Wiccan agreed and then waved her hand at Buffy and over her own forehead, and just like that the Slayer couldn't hear Willow's thoughts anymore. For some strange reason, she felt that as more of a loss than she expected to.

Shrugging it off, the both of them reignited their ki flames and aimed upwards and quickly, even quicker thanks to Willows water-flow spell, blasted off towards the Top Half.

_000_

Much later, after drying off and a few more excuses, and working their way through the throngs of awed onlookers and Technicians, Slayer and the newly dubbed Wiccan made their way back to the apartment.

Buffy was feeling pleasure and no small amount of pride in being able to already reach the bottom of the 2nd Training tower. As she already knew, only the strongest of ki warriors could even reach half way, let alone all the way to the bottom.

When the two were finally back in their apartment, sitting facing each other on the sofa, Buffy confronted her red haired friend. "All right, give Rosenberg. What's this Wiccan title really all about? Are you an Arch Mage now?"

"No," Willow answered, blushing slightly. "I'm nowhere near that powerful. Yet. Suffice to say, I have officially made wicca my religion of choice. I serve the Goddess, the female counterpart to God and Jesus. At least in the grand scheme of things. Don't ask me to explain the relationships between gods."

"Well, you could always ask your tutor," Buffy teased, referring to Marduk.

"Yeah, he tried to, and I still don't quite get it. But that's the personal aspect, I am now a practicing Wiccan in the sense of the religious Wicca. Power-wise . . ." Willow trailed off a little.

"Power wise?" Buffy repeated, gesturing for her to continue.

"Power-wise I got a major boost. A _major_ boost Buffy. I'm talking serious power here. And I think I proved it by meeting you down at the Bottom of the 2nd Training tower. I channeled a portion of my magic into my life force, which then boosted my body to where I could survive the same way you did."

Buffy's eyes went wide at that explanation.

"Oh, no, I can't do that for a fight. And I think I explained it wrong anyway. I cast a spell that translated my magical reserves into physical reserves, so I had just enough power to actually make it down to the bottom and back up to the top. It didn't increase my power in any way, or make me like Super Saiyan strong, it just kept me from running out of energy."

"Oh, well, that makes a lot more sense," Buffy agreed, just vaguely getting it.

"Yeah," Willow agreed.

"So . . ." Buffy wasn't sure how to continue.

"Right, power," Willow picked up where she'd left off. "Besides a major increase in my power reserves, I also got a big boost to the amount of energy I can handle when actually casting. And I think, won't swear to it, but I think as a result of that, my chi attacks have been increased in power as well."

"Well that's good news," the Slayer agreed. "Do you think it'll be enough to help us beat Goku next time?"

Willow shrugged. "Maybe. He's . . . powerful Buffy. I mean, even going all out and letting go with all of your power like last time, recent strength and power increases included, do you think you could even _hurt_ that Ultra Super Saiyan form? Speed aside, if he muscles out like that in our next fight, there's no way we could beat him."

"I'm working on it," Buffy promised. Then sighed. "Unfortunately I'm worried that it's actually going to take me a hundred years, literally, to become strong enough to beat any of his Super Saiyan transformations."

"Especially that last one," the redhead added.

"No shit," Buffy sighed and put her head in her hands. "OK, enough pussy footing and feeling sorry for ourselves and what not."

"Huh?" Willow blurted at the sudden change in topic.

"Let's go to the Training Gym and spar a few rounds. I went to the Second Training to unwind from earlier with Goku and Broly with Xander, but since I actually managed to pull off reaching the very bottom, I'm even more wound up, and I think Broly's got his hands full enough with those Soldier girls."

"Senshi," Willow corrected.

"Same thing," Buffy retorted.

"Come on, we haven't actually sparred since that day Goku first showed us how to tap into our ki! You claim to be even more powerful than before, I know I'm strong enough to KO a Super Saiyan at least _once_, and we're no longer stressing each other over a big nothing. We can go all out without any guilt and not worry about a thing. Willow, we're immortal. Get that through your skull!"

"I've gotten it through my skull Buffy," the magic-user snapped back. Then surprised the Slayer by smirking, rather confidently. "OK Slayer, you're on. Let's go."

Buffy's surprise quickly turned into anticipation as she lead the way to the MTC.

_000_

Xander, exhausted, mentally, physically, and (not to be taken religiously) spiritually, stumbled into the Clinic, only to be immediately taken to the back and thrust, rather painfully, onto one of the steel tables where patients were treated. Treated to what depended on the mood the soulless bastards that ran the place were in.

Apparently they were in as good a mood as they were ever in as they just had the nurse droids, as Xander liked to think of them, hook him up to the life force replenisher, a device that connected to him much the way a blood-pressure pump would, except there was one on each of his arms and legs.

They couldn't actually "replenish" a person's life force, instead it just pumped raw amounts of whatever type of energy the being hooked up to it needed or used, and instead of taking hours of rest and eating food, the cells absorbed the energy directly from the machine, allowing them to build up enough that a fighter could use his energy again.

Xander, grateful for the reprieve from being prodded and poked with needles and muscle regenerators, Buffy tended to need that a lot thanks to her high-level gravity training, just lay back and relaxed, breathing quietly.

After about a minute of silence, Xander was brought out of his relaxation as Giles' voice interrupted his quiet, "So, what did Master Fong do to you today?"

"Ahhh!" Xander shouted, nearly jumping off the table.

"G-man! What the hell are you doing here?" Xander shouted at him.

"Much the same as you, I'd guess," Watcher remarked, gesturing to his body, which was hooked up to an identical machine as Xander was.

"Oh. Well I know why I'm here. Master Fong expects perfection in everything, _and_ I'm learning an entirely unique way of using my life energy as a weapon. So what are you doing here hooked up to the ki gas pump?" the Warrior asked.

Giles rolled his eyes and sighed. "Well, if you must know, Nightblade was teaching me a new form of power of his own. Actually, he taught me how to use battle magic. The kind that I can use in conjunction with his power. And makes what Willow used against Goku in the last bout look like sparklers in a two-year-old's hand."

"Are you shitting me?" Xander demanded.

Giles glared at the cursing, which Xander caught so he quickly revised his question, "Are you kidding me?"

"No, I am neither," Giles replied calmly.

"I don't buy it. Besides, with what Master Fong just got through drilling into me, I could probably top what Willow threw at the Super Saiyan too! Heck, if I wanted to, soon as I'm at top strength, I could probably beat Buffy now!"

"I severely doubt that," Giles drawled. "I definitely could though."

Warrior X glared at Watcher and demanded, "Prove it."

"I'll be glad to once we're released from here," Giles accepted the challenge.

"Main Gym, the microsecond we get out of here," Xander set the time and place.

"I'm sure that those there now would be more than glad to let us settle our difference of opinion. Any rules of taboo you'd like to settle on before we leave?"

"Huh?"

"Things we don't use against each other, or the level of the gravity," Giles clarified.

Xander thought about it. "Whatever gravity combination Slayer's at right now. No holds barred."

"Agreed."

Five minutes later, Giles was released, but Xander still had another half hour wait.

"I'll be there soon G-man!" he promised as the Watcher disappeared through the MTC.

_000_

"OK, so how do you want to do this?" Willow, aka Wiccan asked as they stepped through the MTC into the Training Gym.  
Buffy, aka Slayer, shrugged, pulling her hair back into a ponytail and wrapping it with a wire. "Well, nothing immediately lethal. I mean, you having magic and all, you could probably make my blood boil before I throw the first punch. So . . . I guess we'll start out easy. Our base power levels and no energy attacks. Hey, let's make it more interesting."  
"How so?" Wiccan asked as she started stretching there on the floor.  
Slayer, already limbering herself up, answered, "Let's make a bet. First one to use energy attacks, not their energy, but like a ki ball or a chi-attack, loses. And the winner gets an ice cream sundae with extra chocolate, on the loser of course."  
"I hope you don't mean that literally," Wiccan muttered as she finished stretching and began to warmup. "Besides," she added, "everything is free here, it's not like it would be a big loss."  
"I know, but the winner also gets to pick the toppings and the loser has to eat the same thing," Slayer added with a sly grin.  
Wiccan's was a bit more knowing as she replied, "Knowing what you like . . ."  
"Chocolate," they both interrupted the magic-user's speech.  
". . . I don't think I'd have a problem if I lost. But I won't lose."  
"Oh really? OK, I'll make things a little bit easier on you. You can use magic to defend yourself, but a magical attack, fireball, whatever, that counts as an energy attack," Slayer amended.  
"Deal," Wiccan and the Slayer shook hands, and then leaped apart from each other as their ki flames ignited around them and their power began to rise.  
Slayer, her gold flame surrounding her like living fire, stared, a little stunned at the newly christened Wiccan. Because her ki flame was an unmistakable emerald green!  
"Part of the Wiccan package?" Slayer asked, indicating the color change.  
"You tapped your potential to get a gold ki flame," Wiccan pointed out, "Last night, I tapped my full potential."  
Slayer accepted that for an answer, and then hunkered down as the Wiccan made the first move.  
With a surge of energy and flash of movement, Wiccan rapidly cut the distance between them and lead with a powerful kick, which sent the Slayer flying back, only just reorienting herself in time to block the power mage's follow up attacks.  
Staying on the defensive for the moment, Slayer thought about what Wiccan had told her so far about her new power increase. She hadn't mentioned anything about physical enhancements, but the Slayer wouldn't put it past her to cast speed, strength, and agility spells on herself. So far though, Slayer was liking what she was seeing. Wasn't on Goku's level, but it was definitely above the level Willow had been at before.  
Blocking a final hit, Slayer's ki flame re-ignited, more intense than ever, and faster than the Wiccan could dodge or block, hit her with a blow that nearly ripped the Wiccan's arm off, considering Slayer had been holding it when she hit. Lucky for the Wiccan, the Slayer's punch had been stronger than her grip on the arm.  
Wiccan arched in a straight path for the floor of the training gym, landing in a skid that actually cracked the force-field enhanced material. Shaking herself, she got back up, and put the resolve face back on. Time for her first spell.

Breathing deeply and regularly, Willow's eyes began to glow as she tapped the energy realm around her, the realm of magic. Normally mages of any level or type tapped magic through other sources. Elemental fields, a planet's geo-magnetic field, the astral plane, or even through 'gods' and 'spirits' and tapped into them for an inkling, a bare shaving of the power those things tapped naturally by being connected to the realm of magic, which was more than just that, but for the moment it's what the Wiccan was using it for.

But she, she was tapping it directly.

Brilliant green magical energy erupted from her hands and soon surrounded the Power Mage, her eyes blanking out for a moment, before channeling and being suffused by the same energy. With an ecstatic cry, Wiccan reveled in the feeling of pure, absolute power she felt. But only for a moment before her intelligent mind focused all of that raw energy into direct power for her to use in her spell.

_000_

"About time," Watcher nearly growled as Warrior X finally stepped through the MTC into the Main Gym.  
"Don't blame me," the young man retorted, rubbing sore muscles, "Those Docs in the Clinic do not know how to treat a guy. But whatever. I'm at full power and ready to go G-man."  
"Tell you what Xander, let's make a bet," the Watcher said as they walked further out into the Main Gym. "If I win this little bout, you will no longer call me G-man. Ever again."  
"And if I win?" the Warrior asked a beat later.  
Watcher hesitated, and then answered, "Then I will no longer ask you to stop calling me G-man."  
"Sounds good G-man," the dark haired warrior agreed as they began to space themselves apart for the fight. A couple other fighters were around them, some still in their own sparring matches, but a few, recognizing who they were, stopped to see what they were up to.  
Ready G-man?"  
In reply, Watcher pulled Nightblade from the sheath on his back, which prompted the warrior to immediately draw the katana on his own back. Without really being clear on a signal, Warrior X just decided to go with his instinct, and immediately started raising his power level. A moment later proved that he was good to have trusted his instincts and parried the blow a fast-moving Watcher had swung at him with Nightblade.  
With a quick twist X let the swing over extend and landed a solid punch in Watcher's gut. The man wouldn't let himself fall in the trap of doubling over and standing still though, and quickly jumped back. With a smooth screw he fired two lightning balls with his sword. X shot backward and fired a small beam of energy disintegrating both attacks. He twisted to his left and locked Nightblade between the two palms of his hands, in an age old blocking a blade technique. He grinned at Watcher, and then with a quick motion he twisted the blade from Watcher's hands and rapidly attacked hand-to-hand to press his advantage. Several punches and kicks the watcher blocked or ducked, but he wasn't as fast or as powerful as Xander so several attacks came through. Giles flared his ki, shooting backward and ran up a wall, while Xander fired several ki blasts at Giles. Most missed completely, a few were close enough to jar Giles. Mid ceiling though, Giles grabbed his sword that he had made fly to him, and fired a sudden powerful energy beam from his sword.  
Giles grinned when both he and Xander it was too surprising for Xander to avoid the beam. Instead Xander braced for the impact, raised a barrier and took it head on. A powerful explosion later and Xander went flying back, twisting through the air, bruised, and a little burned here and there, but still conscious and able to fight.

_000_

Slayer hung back for a moment, having seen some of what Willow could do, both magically, and whenever she put her mind to it. Not to mention, she wasn't about to make the same mistake Goku did and rush headlong into what could be a truly devastating attack.

On the other hand, it could also be some kind of freezing or time manipulation spell that Wiccan could use to run circles around her, but not knowing how to counteract something like that, yet, the wisest course of action was still to stand back and wait and see what the Power Mage was up to.

Suddenly Willow shot forward, Buffy's eyes widened. She saw a thousand Willows in one go. The witch was tapping time alright, but it wasn't an attack (thus losing the bet) but it was to make herself go faster. Buffy shot backward, and then off to her right before she crashed into the wall. The hundred Willows (now that Buffy was at speed, the relative difference was less) went after her, coming around the bend. Buffy tried to block the first punch, but suddenly, the hundred Willows shot to the right and then at her again. Slayer poured all her speed into the dodge, and saw the opening Willow had left. Instantly she punched at Wiccan's face.

Buffy's eyes widened when her fist stopped moving. She looked at it; it was looped by an energy ring. She felt her other hand pulled up equally wrapped in a ring. Buffy looked at a smiling Willow, who had glowing eyes. "I guess you lose the bet," Buffy said with raised eyebrows, rather surprised Willow would lose it this easy, then feeling energy wrap around her waist. The multiple Willows effect disappeared.  
Willow smiled and shook her head, and told the half-helpless Slayer, "Sorry, Buffy, but no. You can consider what you walked into the magical version of a spider web, all defense, no attack."  
"It seems you're using up power to keep it going," Slayer observed keenly.  
Wiccan grinned and then her right fist lashed out and landed in Slayer's stomach. "Oof!" Buffy supplied, doubling half over, keeping herself from going all the way, and noticing the red glow around Willow's fist. Slayer felt her hands loosen, but couldn't move in time for the follow up uppercut; the red glow giving it surprising strength - or rather, she realized, a concussion wave. Buffy felt herself becoming dizzy, powered up in response, and then blasted away from Willow.  
Damn, that was not something to walk into again. She watched Willow circle her a bit, always keeping her directly in front of her. Right, that web could only be projected right in front of her, and judging from Willow's heavier breathing that time spell had used up serious amount of power; the witch probably couldn't use it very often. She had to use her speed advantage to outflank the witch, and keep an eye out for more time speeding. Buffy wasn't about to underestimate Willow though; the witch would undoubtedly stop the use of this technique if Buffy could outflank it and thus leaving her open. So if Slayer wanted to make the most use of this weakness, she'd have to make it good on the first try.

Wiccan waited patiently, mentally prepping a number of back-up spells, including a fast-teleportation that would put her directly behind the Slayer no matter where she was, but until Slayer made a move, she was effectively stuck with her hands tied behind her back.

Wiccan was powerful now, especially after last night, but she knew without any doubt that in a head-to-head close up confrontation with the Slayer, she'd be mince meat.

Slayer knew this as well. Wiccan's best field was long distance offense, with spells, chi techniques, and given her new power boost, probably even ki attacks. The only thing that was keeping Slayer safe, for the moment, being long distance at the moment, was the bet of the first one to use an energy attack loses. Wiccan obviously didn't want to lose, so until Slayer could bring this in up close and personal, without getting caught in a magical trap, they were at a stalemate.

Finally, the impatient Slayer couldn't take it any longer, and her adrenaline-upped brain wasn't coming up with any solutions. "Screw it," she muttered and powered up to her absolute max, a scream tearing her throat as her golden ki flame exploded around her. Then, channeling all of her power into her speed, she shot down straight at Wiccan, moving faster than the human eye could follow, leaving a yellow gold energy trail behind her.

Wiccan's eyes went wide. She should have predicted this! She knew Buffy better than anybody, and the Slayer wasn't exactly Miss Nobel Thinker. She certainly wasn't dumb, but she was impatient, and just sitting around trying to think about stuff never sat well with the Slayer.

"Uh oh," Wiccan muttered, only able to see Slayer because she was flying right at her. About a foot from where Wiccan could have triggered the energy web though, Slayer suddenly vanished, one second there, the next just gone.

Wiccan turned around immediately, hoping to predict what her friend was trying to do, but instead she couldn't even sense Slayer anywhere beyond nearby, like she was in several places at once.

'Or maybe it just seems that way,' Wiccan realized, 'because she's moving so fast, my senses can only keep up with the after-images of her, and since she's not even staying still, it seems like she's in several places at once!'

Despite knowing that to stay still was to invite attack, Wiccan had no clue what she could do that wasn't a wasted attack or would seem like cringing back to avoid a blow. Frozen with indecision, the choice was taken from her as Buffy appeared out of thin air, seemingly, directly behind her, a kick already flying for the spell caster's head.

Wiccan's first clue was the incredible amount of pain that had suddenly appeared, starting at the back of her head, while her second was the sensory input that told her she had just been kicked in the back of the head with a very hard boot. Her next clue was how her body, entirely out of her control, suddenly went flying, more like tumbling actually, straight for the wall.

Before she could greet the wall though, she caught the barest glimpse out of the corner of her eye, and she knew the Slayer wasn't through with her yet.

Forcing her body to move, despite its condition and protests, she exerted a tiny fraction of energy to reorient herself, and just managed to raise her fist to block the punch Slayer, flying parallel at the same speed with the Wiccan, threw at her.

However, just because she could block it, didn't make a bit of difference, as the sheer force of Slayer's blow diverted the Wiccan's course to the floor, which she bounced off of after making a small crater in the force-field enhanced material, going halfway to the ceiling, before she reached the apex of her flight and hung in free fall for a few seconds.

Those seconds were all that were needed for Slayer to catch up, appear in a flash of movement above the power mage, double up her fists and raise them above her own head. Then she grinned down at her and gave her a cocky, shit-eating grin before slamming with an enormous amount of force to Wiccan's torso, nearly tripling the speed she would have hit the floor with.

The crater was several meters in all directions from its epicenter, Wiccan, and at least a couple feet deep. Wiccan, however, just got up and dusted herself off. Slayer stared - shocked.

"What the . . ." she started to say, when she felt a piercing pain in her gut and suddenly found Wiccan's fist as the source of said pain. " . . . hell?" she finished weakly, falling to the floor from her position in the air.

"Stone skin spell combined with a hyper speed portal," Willow explained as Buffy fell to the floor. "All non-offensive spells, unless used properly. And also, only physical, not energy attacks."

Just before she would hit the ground, Slayer's ki flame ignited around her and she halted a few feet above the crater that had been the floor. Slowly, she righted herself and set her feet on the ground, rubbing her stomach as she did. "Damn Wills, that hurt!" she cried out, her face an annoyed grimace of pain.

"It's kind of supposed to, Buffy," Wiccan just grinned down at her blonde friend.

"Yeah, but now I'm going to have to hurt you," she retorted like she was quoting some driver's manual. Wiccan paled, and her eyes widened slightly.

_000_

The moment Xander regained himself, he blasted away to his left, not allowing Giles to take advantage of his moment of being out of control. Once reoriented, he pinpointed the Watcher by his energy-signature.  
"Spirit Shotgun!" X called, blindly firing at the Watcher's signature. The separate blasts had the desired effect. Watcher had to maneuver delicately to avoid the expanding blasts of energy, and the moment he was past them Xander was on him. Watcher was shocked when he realized that X had kept some of his full speed hidden, and now the punch that came at him with good long speeding start was totally unavoidable. It landed squarely on Watcher's cheek, and as a pain flared through his head, a bruise forming almost instantly, he was launched tumbling backward.  
"KAMEHAMEHA!" X yelled and fired the devastating beam of energy at almost point blank range. X was intending to end this sparring bout quickly to start another, having thought the combination was lethal, but like him Watcher too had kept something in reserve.  
"Slayer's Defense!" Giles called, holding his hand out, charging the very, very powerful mixture of chi and ki shield around him. A moment later the Kamehameha exploded on the shield, and once the dust settled he stood unscathed, looking at the still flying Warrior X.  
"Damn!" Xander muttered in surprise, then grinned, this was going to be more interesting after all. Giles too grinned up at X, knowing that the fight with the boy was going to be even tougher than he thought he'd be.  
"Let's try something new G-man!" the Warrior cried as he began pooling chi energy in one hand and ki energy in the other. Normally he would never have tried this, drawing on his life force with two different forms was the same as burning the candle at both ends, and then throwing it into the fire. But he had managed to knock Buffy into a crater more than a foot deep with a chi-powered punch, and he would need some long distance attacks. And he just wanted to know if he could actually do it.  
He was right about the energy drain, he discovered as he began charging several blasts in the one hand, and maintained the energy in the fist in his other.  
Watcher briefly wondered what the young man was up to, before he decided it didn't matter and he lowered the only chi-attack, more of a defense really, that he had been able to teach himself. Nightblade had also assured him it was more than likely the only "technique" he would ever be able to do so with.  
Instead of waiting for Warrior X to make the next move, Watcher gathered his energy, holding Nightblade above his hand, holding on with both hands. Just as the Warrior launched a number of powerful ki blasts in his direction, and began following them in at a high speed, Watcher let the energy reach its climax and brought his Blade down in a powerful swipe, which burned the air, an energy wave lashing out straight at X!  
X twisted to the right as some of his blasts were destroyed by the energy wave. The rest of his blasts flew past. Some Watcher destroyed with his blade, the rest he carefully avoided. X looked with surprise as Watcher's bright blue energy wave changed course and followed him around.  
X grinned in appreciation and sped up, going straight for Watcher the energy wave following him. Let's see what he does now! Xander thought, knowing that if Watcher made the wrong move he would lose right now.  
Giles looked as X sped to him, his eyes widened. With a flick of the blade and a moment of concentration, the energy wave changed course. "You're not going to make me hit myself, Xander," Watcher said with a little disappointment that Xander would underestimate him.  
Xander grinned, and said, "You've lost, Giles." Xander sped up, charging a normal energy ball and firing at him. Watcher used his obsidian sword to get rid of it, moving the other direction, incidentally toward his own wave, and Xander waited for him. Xander made a punch, which Giles neatly avoided. Xander then kicked with his right leg up and around. Giles turned and flew up to avoid it. Xander backed away some, and charged his Spirit Wave, and pointed his open palm at Giles oncoming wave of energy.  
"Xander? Are you crazy?" Giles exclaimed when he realized what Xander was going to do.  
"Spirit Wave!" Xander yelled and a wave of energy fired out directly at the other wave. Giles was unable to make it dodge, so he retreated to limit his own damage. The waves collided and the two antithetical energies exploded with massive force, immediately blanketing large parts of the gym. Many of the other fighters present decided it would be a good time to leave, and those that could teleport did, taking as many with them as they could and leaving the rest to try and make their way to the portal out of here.  
Xander didn't avoid the blast, he went straight into it, straight for where he felt Giles struggling to get out of the blast radius. "Warrior's Fury!" Xander yelled out, instantly a soft red glow surrounded his body, staying close to him instead of flaring out in flame like bursts of energy with his normal power up, and his eyes switched to a cold pair of twin orbs of complete blackness. The Warrior's Fury technique boosted his ki, speed and strength temporarily, and with this he flew into the blast. Energy crashed against him, and cut him open in many places. He grinned, he welcomed the pain, and pushed forward.  
Giles was struggling with the blast, he didn't have time to charge the shield again, and it would limit his maneuverability in this mess. Suddenly his eyes widened at the sight in front of him: Xander, bleeding from multiple cuts, his uniform torn in places, teeth tight together, he emerged like a specter or demon, all red and twisted out of the blast. And worse, faster than he would have thought Xander could possibly move!

A moment later Xander's right fist rammed into his gut. He doubled over; the punch was so massive he almost touched his toes with his chin, and since X himself was next to him, only the hand in his gut. As Giles was pushed in front of the still moving Xander, he heard Xander say, "Learn this lesson well, G-man . . ."  
X held back a bit, and then followed up with a massive upper cut, stretching Watcher back straight and sending him diagonally up into the air, using his gained speed he sped around and in front and above Giles, all the while continuing to tell Giles, ". . . if you want to win, you'll not only have to take risks, but sometimes you have to be willing  
to take damage." Warrior X looked into Giles astonished eyes, and then with a roar he made devastating downward twisting kick, smashing Giles into his gut and sending him crashing down to the ground. With a powerful groan Giles smashed to the ground. He lost his grip on Nightblade, and the sword skidded away.  
Xander landed down next to Giles and stretched out his hand. Giles coughed and some blood came up. Xander grinned down, charging another normal average day ki blast at his down stretched right hand, and he said, "Time to get in contact with you inner Ripper again, Watcher. Perhaps Willow and Buffy have yet to learn this lesson, and we get to teach them the way I taught you, eh, G-man?" Then he fired the blast down intending to open a big wound on Watcher's torso, killing him instantly. "I'll wait for you to wake up, friend," Warrior X said with a smile.  
It all happened so fast that Xander would be wondering for years to come exactly what happened in that single instant. One instant, the blast had been heading straight and true, right for Giles' chest, mere centimeters from killing the man. The very next, Nightblade was back in Watcher's hand and reflecting the blast right back at Xander's head.

_000_

In the next second, Slayer disappeared, Wiccan half a beat behind her, and then an explosion rocked the Training Gym as a chi-powered fist met with a magically spelled fist, half a second later it repeated three more times in rapid succession. The culmination of the explosions finally forced the fighters apart, blasting them to opposite sides of the gym. Slayer grinned, having learned how to put up with this from her last fight with Goku, and dove right into the explosions, angling for where she sensed her opponent.

Wiccan coughed slightly, staring at the burst of energy that had come from the clashing of hers and Slayer's power, somewhat surprised that it was that potent. Then a flicker of energy caught her attention, and her eyes widened as Slayer came blazing out of the receding explosion like a Valkyrie out of Hell!

Instantly, Wiccan recast the 'web' spell, as she called it, and only just in time as Slayer was caught in it just as Wiccan finished casting it. With a scream of frustration, Slayer's ki flame reignited, having gone out when caught, and her power, subdued under the web's influence, began to rise once more.

Wiccan was too stunned by this change in her opponent to take advantage of her weakened, albeit temporarily, state, frozen by a mixture of surprise, curiosity, and terror.

The raw power the Slayer wielded had always intimidated Willow to some point, but now that she understood the basis for that power, and what it meant . . . it truly terrified the magic-user at some points. That all that power was given to her best friend was both a comfort and a worry. Comfort because she knew Buffy would never intentionally hurt her. Worry because she didn't fully know what such power would do to the young woman.

Slayer couldn't believe how stupid she was! She fell into the same trap, again! And after having known how to counter it too! It frustrated her to no end that she had been so stupid. And that made her madder than hell!

A scream of rage tore her throat, the golden ki flame sparking with even greater power, raging against her restraints as much as she was. And that's when it happened. For a moment, the briefest of moments, that she almost missed it, the web faltered, just a little, enough for her power to rise a little more, but not enough for her to even move a little bit.

'That's it!' she realized, 'I can't cast any sort of counter spell to this, nor can I even begin to figure out its weakness, but I can overpower it!'

With that thought in mind, Slayer began to pour every ounce of her energy into bringing out more and more of her power.

Wiccan too soon realized this, but unfortunately, she was just as trapped as the Slayer, because the spell couldn't be removed until the one caught in it was forced backwards, instead of continuing forwards. And given the Slayer's current, and rising, level of power, only some kind of energy attack would get the Slayer out of her face.

But that would mean losing the bet, and she wasn't ready to do that just yet. So she did the next best thing, and used her teleportation spell.

Slayer didn't even notice when Wiccan disappeared from her sight, but she did notice that she was no longer being held back, and as a result, surged forward, and careened completely out of control right at the wall!

"Ooo, that had to hurt," Wiccan winced as her friend hit the force-field enforced wall head first, and creating a decent sized hole in it as well. Not that even the Slayer could go completely through the several meters, if not miles thick walls.

Before Wiccan could make another comment though, Slayer flashed from the hole to directly above her, and answered angrily, "It did."

Gulping, in appreciation for her predicament, Wiccan raised her power level and met the Slayer head on as they began to trade blows at a blinding speed.

Wiccan was good, but even with her stone skin that she was rapidly losing, she really didn't stand a chance in hand to hand against a slayer, certainly not /this/ slayer. Soon a particularly vicious punch landed smack on her chin, and groaning in pain she was launched backward. Undoubtedly Buffy would use her prone form to land more damage. With a quick spell she teleported away, just before Buffy's fist passed through the air where she had just been.

Wiccan reappeared on other side of the training room, and looked at Buffy growling in frustration. That was it! That was the key to winning the bet. The one weakness Buffy had never really learned to overcome: the very essence that made her so powerful was a predator. An enhancement to hunt and kill demons, and it wasn't particularly patient or nice. It was violent; a kill first, then kill some more killing machine. If Willow got Buffy worked up enough . . . Wiccan grinned; undoubtedly she'd lose the match this way; but she'd win the bet. Then she burst forward, taking Buffy straight on, who was coming right at her. Suddenly Buffy shot around; just like Willow expected, a frustrated Buffy may fall for a trap twice, but not thrice. The Slayer was far too fast for Willow turn around and block the punch, so Buffy's fist ripped through empty air.

Buffy's eyes widened, then grimaced. She looked up and saw a grinning Willow on the other side of the room again, arms folded superiorly over her chest. "Slowpoke," Wiccan teased the Slayer.

"/_What_/!?" Buffy exclaimed with mounting anger.

"You heard me: slowpoke," Willow told her again, grinning widely.

With a yell that fell in between a roar and a growl Buffy shot at Willow. The witch quickly flew to the right; not really bothering with the trap again, she'd down this worked up Slayer would be held by it anyway. Buffy was so close now, Willow could probably count her lashes, and she stuck out her tongue, just before teleporting. A dangerous growl issued from Buffy who changed course directly, only to move her fist through empty air once again.

"Stand still!" Buffy screamed as her frustrations starting taking over.

Willow started feeling the strain, teleporting over and over again was quickly draining her power, but Buffy was definitely getting worked up. Just a little bit more. Willow put her thumb on either cheek, wiggled her stretched out fingers, and stuck out her tongue, flapping it around and adding the annoying sound. "OOH! You just /wait/!" Buffy screamed and shot forward, faster than ever. Willow only barely managed to perform her teleport spell, making Buffy once more hit only air.

"Neener, neener, neener, slowpoke, just like a little snail!" Willow teased with a far too huge grin.

"THAT'S IT!!!" Buffy exploded, her chi flame bursting wildly around her, so powerfully her hair whirled around. Dark predator eyes focused on Willow, and anger bursting Buffy in a new power range, along with the dark looks made Willow swallow heavily with fear. She was certain Buffy wasn't /really/ going to hurt her, but she really very much never ever wanted to be the Slayer's enemy. "You're going down!" Buffy roared, and with her hands into the air, her ki burst outward in a sphere, rapidly covering the entire gym like a shockwave.

Willow swallowed again, especially when Buffy started firing energy balls in every direction. The only way to avoid damage now, would be to teleport /out/ of the training ground, and she had used up so much of her power already. Focusing all her power into a shield, she braced for the impact, which arrived a moment later. Pain lanced through her as the ki wave crashed into her, and then not one as expected, but the one on course and a few more energy balls crashed into her - the latter after changing course. Explosions rocked the entire gym, straining the energy shielding, and Willow cried out in pain as several explosions rocked her body, tore holes in her clothing, and lacerated her skin in the same places. She was flung backward, until she crashed painfully against a shield-protected wall, and then slumped.

She heard the angry cry of her friend, coming straight at her to finish the job. Willow opened, and grinned at the rapidly approaching slayer, saying, "I win."

Those two confusing words stopped Buffy just a meter short of Willow. She frowned - wasn't she the one winning? - and asked, "What?"

"I win. I win the bet," Willow grinned even wider. "You used energy attacks first."

Buffy blinked, then blinked again watching her friend's face split into a wide, triumphant grin. "OOOOOOHHH!!" Buffy then exclaimed, realizing she let her inner slayer-fire got the better of her. Buffy then grinned down evilly at Willow, pulled her fist back, and said, "Get ready for payback."

Willow swallowed.

_000_

Still moving at an enhanced speed, reaction time and muscle speed all increased, Xander only lost the front hairs on his bangs to his own blast as he jerked his head backwards, working to dodge it. Jumping further back, Warrior X only just avoided being sliced in two as Giles attacked him with a horizontal slash. If the slash had just been that, X wouldn't have worried. Instead it was Giles launching another energy wave, and the Warrior was way too close to even begin to dodge it.

The wave picked the body up and dragged him along for several meters before exploding in a tremendous explosion, letting Warrior X fly back until his limp body actually hit the wall of the Gym.

"Ow," he muttered, half out of it as he slid down onto his feet, still having the energy of the Aura Force technique running through him, so he was able to actually stand on his feet, although walking or anything else wasn't much of an option at the moment.

"Did you really think I was at my maximum, boy?" Giles taunted him, his voice taking on a more rugged and angry tone. "I wasn't even trying. In fact I was downplaying myself to move more at your level. Or rather . . . the level I thought you were at. Well done, Alexander."

Warrior X's eyes suddenly snapped into focus, and he scowled at the Blade wielder. "Don't," he hissed, brilliant red flames suddenly erupted around him, overpowering the normal white ki flame he had shown until this moment, "Call," his muscles too began to show just how much stronger they were and a few among his biceps increased in size, "Me," leaping into the air, the angry red ki flame leaving an after-trail in his wake, "ALEXANDER!!" he roared as he began to fire volley after volley of ki blasts at Watcher, too many for him to either dodge or try to overpower them with another energy wave.

:_His father must always call him that,_: Nightblade observed to Watcher as he cast the 'Slayer's Defense' shield again.

_'Indeed,'_ Giles merely reminded himself that this whole fight was about Xander not calling him G-man anymore. He grinned savagely as Warrior X finally subsided in his attacks and let the smoke clear. To find Watcher staring up at him beneath a soft blue glowing dome of energy.

"Arragh!" Warrior X shouted his frustration and tempered his energy, waiting for Watcher to come out from behind his turtle shell.

Which he did momentarily, ready to bring it back up at a microseconds notice, depending on what Warrior X would do next.

Rather than waste more energy, knowing the Watcher could just summon the impenetrable, so far, shield again, he tried to think of another tactic.

Until Watcher suddenly shot forward with a surprising burst of speed, catching him off guard, and then he remembered to move and shoot up into the air in hopes of avoiding the G-man's attack.

An attack, which rebounded off the wall that had been behind the warrior and angled up to slam into him from the back. Crying out with pain, Warrior X tried to turn around to retaliate, when he felt a sharp stinging followed by overwhelming amounts of pain. He was just as suddenly hurtled through the air to land in a rolling skid on the floor, several hundred feet away.

All the other fighters stared, most backing off to the sidelines or just outright leaving, while a couple of the others, obviously more powerful, either ignored it and continued their own exercises, or stood back to watch, occasionally commenting with their companions.

It took a few moments for Xander to figure out what had happened. Giles had stabbed him in the arm! Said arm was now hanging limp at his side as he got back to his feet, but it was the pain that was the most distracting.

Grimacing as he struggled not to cry out and mostly ignore the pain, Warrior X stood back up and glared with complete rage at Watcher. His bright red ki flame ignited with a burst of energy and his power rose tremendously in just a few seconds.

His workable arm clenched into a tight fist, around which a very different red-hued aura came into existence. He had only learned it today, but Master Fong had drilled him so thoroughly that it was the same as if he'd been using the techniques for years.

Drawing his fist back, he aimed at Watcher and secured his footing.

"SPIRIT WAVE, HA!" he shouted, flashing his fist forward and open right at Watcher. A giant, at least ten feet across in diameter alone, red energy blast shot out, and with speed faster than any living body could travel, shot across the distance between Warrior and Watcher.

Before he could even think about defending in any way, the wave was already upon the Watcher, reacting mostly instinctively by blocking his face with his arms.

"Whoa!"

"No way!"

"By the Powers, that kid is powerful!"

A general round of exclamations and comments came from the other fighters, staying well out of range of the still ongoing fight, and no one was under any delusions that it was over yet.

When the energy wave finally dissipated, Watcher was revealed to be on the floor, his arms still over his face, but the rest of him was either torn, burned, or smoking at the very least. And when he finally moved to stand back up, his movements were slow and somewhat awkward.

"So . . . Alexander," Giles commented with a teasing, shit-eating grin, "you too have finally stopped holding back."

Xander gave a very hyena-like growl of anger, his ki flame becoming even more agitated. "Don't call me that, G-man!" he shouted.

"Well . . . now you know how it feels at least," Giles told him seriously. "Now, let's finish this bet, shall we . . . Alexander?"

Both fighters flashed out of sight, moving too fast to be seen with normal eyes, only the concussion waves from when they clashed giving any hint as to where they might be at any moment.

It was obvious that Watcher had the advantage in skill and control, but Warrior X was exuding a raw power that more often than not ended up surprising the Watcher. The Warrior was knocked to the floor or wall or ceiling, or forcefield window more often, but he always got back up. The few times Watcher was knocked into a crater, it became more and more difficult for him to recover from the decimating blow.

Finally, the two men stood in the center of the Main Gym, both gasping for what breath they could get, both injured, bleeding in Xander's case, and Giles even had a few broken ribs and a broken ankle from a failed kick that X had taken advantage of.

"You . . . can't . . . keep this . . . up . . . forever . . . Xander . . ." Giles worked out between gasping breaths. He was actually floating above the floor, to help keep the pressure, and the pain, off of his ankle.

Xander renewed his angry glare at his opponent, and then straightened while remarkably improving his breathing. "Neither can you, Giles," he darkly replied.

The absence of the accursed annoying nickname in that instance told Giles that he had crossed some unknown line in Xander's eyes. How or what that was, Watcher had no clue, but he did know one thing. He was finished. Just looking at Warrior X told him that, and considering how the fight had gone so far, that surprised him more than anything else X had done so far in this fight.

Warrior X wasn't in as good a shape as he appeared to be. He was on empty, but he couldn't let his opponent know that. Feeling weak was all right, it was a part of nature, nothing was infinite. Showing weakness however, was instant death. And his hyena half would not allow him to show even a bit of weakness, even if he was already dead.

But he did have enough energy for one last attack. One last strike. One last grasp at life by ending his opponent's. Entering a familiar stance, Warrior X poured all his remaining energy into the pooling attack between his hands.

"KAAAAAAAAAA . . ."

Watcher's eyes widened as he observed Xander doing the impossible; charging an attack of sizeable proportions when both he and Giles had nothing left. Watcher didn't even have enough energy to make use of his shield any longer.

"MEEEEEEEEEEE . . ."

Watcher had no choice, he tapped into Nightblade's energy, using it to temporarily supercharge what remained of his own and began building his own attack, hoping it would be enough to let him survive, at least, Warrior X's attack.

"HAAAAAAAAA . . ."

Bluish white energy began to form between X's cupped hands, shining brighter and blotting out the red of his ki flame, beams of light escaping between his fingers and hands like the beacons of a lighthouse using a halogen lamp.

"MEEEEEEEEEEEEE . . ."

"Kamehameha!" Giles shouted, firing his own attack, as powerful as he could make it, as fast as he could gather the energy, but in the next instant it didn't really matter.

"**HHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!**" Xander fired.

_000_

Buffy and Willow were laughing as they came back into the apartment, their clothes still battle-scarred, but thanks in large part to Willow's power upgrade and her knowledge of healing spells, _they _were not.

"That was great Will! I mean that! This Wiccan thing is pretty awesome I have to admit. But I'm also willing to bet that you can't single handedly take out all of the 4 Arch Mages, can you? Like the last Wiccan could." Buffy said.

Willow smiled wistfully and shook her head. "No, still can't beat Marduk. I mean, come on Buffy, he's the literal _god_ of magic across more than 10,000 realms, ours included. Besides, skill-wise, I'm pretty much the best there is at the moment, save Marduk. Magically speaking of course. The ritual last night . . . it confirmed that I have the knowledge and skill with magical energies that I needed. Now all I need is to build up my power, and without cheating and going extremely past the moral line in the sand, that's going to take time. So . . . I would like cocoa, fudge, and with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles and a cherry on top on my mocha. If you please," she added with a dirty smirk on her dirty face.

Buffy stared for a moment, and then just laughed, both of them heading over to the bar. Then they stopped as the MTC activated once more.

Xander, laughing his head off in a slightly frightening manner due to the memories it brought forth, lead the way, followed by a grumpy, and pouty Watcher. The men stopped, and more importantly Xander stopped laughing, when they finally noticed the girls there.

"Willow!" Xander shouted, and moving faster than thought, crossed the distance between them and had the redhead in a fierce and loving hug. "I missed you! You were like . . . gone, and OK you weren't gone far away or for very long, but you were gone and so I missed you!"

Laughing at being in the arms of her best friend, Willow returned the hug, with just as much pressure, surprised that she could dish it out just as well as handle it. No more complaining to Buffy about being oxygen deprived when being hugged apparently.

"That's all right Xander, and if I had been gone longer than a night and a day, I would say I missed you to, but I wasn't gone long enough," Willow teased him.

Frowning in confusion, Xander finally released the Wiccan and asked, "Should I be going 'Hey!' right about now?"

Smiling, she just shook her head, and hugged him again.

Smiling himself, he just muttered, "I'll take that as a no then."

During all this, Giles had rejoined them across the room and once the two best friends had separated, nodded towards Willow, saying, "It's good to have you back Willow. So . . . what is the surprise?"

"Oh! That's right!" Willow exclaimed, being reminded of her last words to them all before going to Marduk's the night before. "I'm the Wiccan now!" she said with a bit of flare.

The men stared, uncomprehending for about thirty seconds, until something clicked in Giles' mind and he nodded. "Yes, if I recall correctly, Goku said that the last Wiccan was one of the most powerful magic-users at the Compound, and actually trained the current 4 Arch Mages."

"Yeah, well, that's kind of an exaggeration," Willow told them, blushing a little.

"So you're like the Super Girl of magic now, huh?" Xander asked, trying to put in an analogy he understood.

"Not really. More like I got a power boost so I'm closer to Buffy's level than I was before," she answered.

Eyebrows went up in appreciation.

"She's not kidding," Buffy supported her friend, "We just got back from testing out this new power of hers. It was a close match all the way. Until I revealed a few more powers of my own and mopped the floor with her," she smugly added.

Willow glared at the blonde, "You did not _'mop the floor with me'_ or anything like it! I had you on the ropes until . . ." she trailed off.

"I mopped the floor with her," Buffy smugly finished for the redhead.

"I'm actually kind of hoping you don't mean that literally," Xander commented with a dry bit of humor.

Giggling, Buffy shook her head to the negative. "Naw. But she did good. I'm going to have to watch myself in future sparring matches. You guys are seriously starting to catch up with me. So, what have the two of you two been up to? . . . Too?"

Staring for a moment, they all just shook their heads to clear the confusion from 'Buffy babble', and Xander answered, "Well, let's just say, you weren't the only one doing some mopping, and I am also forced to admit, Wills ain't the only one with a new bag of tricks. G-man's got some serious skills, and if it weren't for the fact that I beat him, he could probably give you a serious work out of your own Buff."

"Really?" Buffy eyed her Watcher for a moment.

"So you two were having your own sparring match?" Willow asked.

"Yes, although . . . we did have somewhat of a . . . wager going on, on the side," Giles added through a blush.

Buffy and Willow shared a look. "So what was yours?" the blonde asked.

Xander looked between the two of them and responded, "What was yours?"

"We asked first," Willow pointed out.

"I wanted to see if it were at all possible to get Xander to stop calling me . . . G-man," Watcher answered as he huffily walked around the group to his place at the Bar.

The teenagers all burst out in giggles and laughter for several minutes, which continued as they ordered a dinner meal, and Willow was forced to pay up on her and Buffy's bet.

_000_

"So, seriously," Xander asked Buffy later that afternoon, "How good is she? Because I distinctly remember that the last time we trained together, even with magic boosting her, Wills could hardly keep up with all of us, let alone give you a work out."

"Seriously?" she replied a moment later. They were in a spare Training Gym that Alvin had let them into while their usual one was still being repaired from Wiccan and Slayer's earlier bout. The district manager was still shouting about that last energy combo Buffy had used, exploding a Kamehameha wave and then riding the shockwave to deliver a chi-powered neck-breaking punch. Buffy had just grinned and planned to use it the next time she fought Goku.

"Seriously," Xander repeated.

"She _is_ better," she admitted to him, "and she's smart, and she can use magic like she _was_ one of the Arch Mages, at least from my point of view. Unfortunately, since mages typically control or at the very least influence outside forces, we aren't going to see a magic battle until the Tournament."

Xander could tell she was quoting Willow directly, since he had once asked the redhead the same question.

"But," he leaded.

Buffy sighed and stopped the kata she had been performing, Xander followed suit. "But," she sourly admitted, "she doesn't have what I have. Hell, you have more of it than she does."

"What?"

"Raw power. And if she does have more power than what she's shown so far, she needs to. Because she's still not strong enough to beat me. And I can't beat Goku, but I came damn close that one time." She suddenly slumped and dropped to the floor, looking utterly defeated.

This disturbed Xander a great deal because he had never seen Buffy like this. Ever.

"Buff, what's wrong?" he begged to know so he could fix it.

"We're going to lose Xander," she whispered hoarsely, tears welling up in her eyes, showing to him just how much her inability to utterly defeat Goku was affecting her. "We're going to die in 3 months, and it's all my fault. I should have said no!"

"Hey! I thought we had talked about this," he embraced her, and was starting to freak out by how easily she let him. Unbidden, and uncontrolled, his instincts surged suddenly, and his body reacted accordingly.

"You are a great . . . team leader," he almost said Alpha. "And look at what we can already do. Goku said it himself, the first few times he went to the Tournament, he lost so badly that the bad guys actually let him live. Now I'm not saying we should lose so badly we're laughed out of the place, but I'm not going to let you beat yourself up before it's even close to time for worrying about something like that. You're a beautiful, vibrant, wonder, _alive_ young woman. You have more to enjoy than to worry about. Worrying makes you old too fast. Don't worry Buff. I'll do absolutely anything I have to to protect you."

Buffy looked up at the end of his speech, staring into his eyes.

"You think I'm beautiful?" she asked, sounding surprised.

_'That's what she hooks onto after all that?'_ he asked himself, barely able to keep control of his much baser instinct to just nod in reply.

Neither can say what caused it or even who did it first, but the next thing either of the young warriors knew, they were kissing. Pulling back suddenly, they stared into each other's eyes for only a moment before they surged back together in a much more heated kiss.

TBC... Sooner than later I hope.


End file.
